In My Eyes
by Little Knight Mik
Summary: [Rewrite of Though My Eyes] An encounter with the shadow world leaves Yu scrambling for as much normalcy as possible in her life, but with stupidly handsome boys and an abundance of cliched, storybook evil at work, "normal" is a pretty tall order. [Jace/OC]
1. Part 1: CHANGES

**Wow. I can't believe I'm finally able to come back to this story o.o Anyway, welcome to In My Eyes! If you're a newcomer, feel free to ignore this whole spiel I'm about to go on and enjoy the fic! If you're from the old version, thank you so much for waiting for me to write this. I know I said late Jan/early Feb, but let's just say my health was a lot more unpredictable than it is now. I'm thankfully on top of everything and I've been excited to work on this again, so I hope it's just as good as you'd hoped!**

 **A few changes have been made (some small, some big), so I hope it doesn't take away from the experience the original gave you. Just as a little preface, In My Eyes will be split into two parts - Changes and Family. Changes will be covering CoB, while Family covers CoA. The chapters will probably vary in length, but right now they each average about 3k words! There's only five other chapters written up, and I'll be uploading them every two weeks to keep a steady pace for myself.**

* * *

 **PART ONE: CHANGES**

It didn't feel like she was waking up all of a sudden. Not like those nightmares you get where sheer terror forced your eyes open, or those bouts of microsleep that always came with the reminder, _Wake up! You're on the road!_

No, it was slow and disorienting. Like she realised she was dreaming, but couldn't figure out how to open her eyes. Her mind was wrapped in warmth, tempting her to just go back to sleep and deal with it later. She could barely feel her limbs, let alone her face, but the rise and fall of her lungs was as clear as day. Her throat wasn't as dry as expected. Her breathing was clearer than ever. The smell—the _sterileness_ of it all—was overbearing, though.

Eyes fluttered open once. Fell back shut. More attempts were made before Yu could finally say her vision was blurry, that she actually had them open at last. She knew hospitals when she saw them, but what had her stumped as the tides of sleep tried to bring her back in was _why_. Why was she in a hospital right now? Why did she feel like she was barely even existent? Why was she so groggy?

Each time she tried to delve through her memories for answers, blocks appeared along the way. Red hair. A bike. Squealing tires. Yu couldn't make sense of it. She breathed deeply—she could actually feel her lungs expand now—as she tried to sit up.

Someone moved beside her, having noticed her wake up. She didn't recognise the voice at first when they muttered, "Oh!" in shock. But the familiarity soon settled once Yu looked blearily to her right. Mrs. Fray—Jocelyn, she thought. Her best friend's mother and an acquaintance of her parents'.

 _Red hair falling around her face. Drowning out her stunned expression. Down, down down._

Yu wanted to break the silence with a greeting, but her lips were so numb and her throat was so weak that all she could manage was a pitiful, "Ah."

Jocelyn let out a relieved breath. The look on her face went from surprised to absolute relief, a hand flying to her eye and wiping at it furiously. "Thank goodness," she sighed. Yu blinked up at her. "How are you feeling, Yu?"

The word she wanted to say was " _crap_ ". The word that came out was a long, drawn out, "Eh…"

Jocelyn's nose crinkled. "I'm not surprised." She reached out and took Yu's hand, rubbing her knuckles with her thumb. "I'll be right back, okay? I just need to get the doctor."

She released her hand and rose from her chair. Just as she turned her back, Yu desperately wanted to reach out for her. Why was she here? What happened? Where were her parents? She pictured her hand reaching for Jocelyn, hoping it would help her move, but all it did was remove more blocks in her memory.

 _Pressure of her hand against her chest. A powerful shove. Panic. Desperation. Will she push her far enough?_

She blinked her eyes tightly, scrunching up her face to try and bring back some sensation to it. To her left was another bed, unoccupied and free of any belongings that would hint at any other patients in the room. There were no windows, but Yu could swear she heard the sounds of birds chirping nearby.

A cautionary glance along the ceiling revealed a small speaker above her. She was confused as to why it was there, playing white noise, but she wasn't allowed a lot of time to dwell on it. Jocelyn Fray came back into the room with a few doctors behind her, as well as a nurse trailing behind her. Yu blinked slowly at them all. An old female doctor, a young male doctor, and a female nurse with… blue skin? She stared at the nurse as they all gathered around her bed. Blue skin and white hair—that wasn't natural, was it?

Jocelyn and the nurse shared a wary glance before the doctors began asking Yu about how she felt. Lights were shone in her eyes, small instructions for her recovery were given to her. They paused every so often to relay the information to Jocelyn as well, and then by the end of the conversation they'd say the darndest thing.

"What you did was very heroic, Ayumu," one of her doctors told her as sleep came over her again. "Your parents will be proud when they come home."

* * *

 _She clicked her tongue, annoyed. "The wheel's busted," she said._

 _Clary groaned. She bent down and double-checked the laces of her sneakers. "I knew the rock path was bad."_

" _I made an error in judgement." Yu rolled her eyes as she lifted the foot brake. So her shortcut turned out to be a bust. At least now they knew the stones in the park were sharper than they looked. "It's not like we'll be home late at this point."_

" _Mom'll still flip," Clary pointed out. She stood back up and joined Yu as she walked the bike along the path. "We're meant to be home before five. It'll six by the time we're there."_

" _She'll understand once she sees the bike."_

 _Clary scoffed._

" _If Jocelyn punishes us for coming home late," Yu added, "then I'll eat an entire serving of Elmo's dog food."_

" _Gross."_

* * *

"Sorry for all the trouble, Jocelyn." She peeked over the newspaper at the woman, both scared and eager to see through the blank mask the redhead wore. "I can see if Eric's mom or Simon's can have me for the rest of…"

She trailed off, not sure if what she was saying was wise. Yu's parents had already asked Eric and Simon's about the possibility of staying with them—and they'd both explained that there simply was no room. Jocelyn had been the only option, outside of staying home alone.

Jocelyn simply shook her head and turned a page. She folded the paper in half and moved it towards Yu, pointing to an article. "Didn't take them long to talk about it," she said. "And don't worry about it. One trip to the hospital isn't going to make me kick you out. Lord knows the fit Clary would have if I were cruel enough to do that," she muttered.

Yu smiled nervously. She took the newspaper, her gaze dropping to the small hundred-word article Jocelyn's index finger hovered over. The first thing that jumped out at her was the title: _Hit and run hospitalises teen_.

"It's only been a couple of days." Yu frowned as she gave it a quick read over. "How come no one's come to ask about it?"

Jocelyn shuffled in her seat. Part of her expression said she was apologetic with the news she was about to deliver, but another part of it screamed the desire to keep something private. "I told them that I wouldn't consent to you being put in the news," she told her. "I know the idea of having your name in a newspaper is exciting, but…"

"I get it." She handed the newspaper back to her. All she had to offer was a sympathetic smile. What was the point in being upset over someone wanting to keep their life to themselves? "I'm actually glad. The last thing Clary and I would need is more stress from it."

She breathed a sigh of relief. The relief soon disappeared, though, once Clary's name had been brought up. Yu watched her carefully, once again hoping to see past Jocelyn's mask.

Clary hadn't visited yet. Every time Jocelyn came by to visit and bring her some homemade cookies, Clary was never behind her. Never in front of her. Never walking in by her side. Yu understood that the shock of the whole event would probably leave Clary a little anxious—but a stupid, irrational part of her always made her heart ache with the suggestion that Clary is upset with Yu. _How dare you put yourself at risk_ , and all that.

"I'm hoping she'll be okay to visit tomorrow," Jocelyn said softly. She looked over at Yu and caught her concerned expression; with the speed only a mother could have, Jocelyn turned into a force of reassurance. "She's still feeling tired from all the blood they took."

"Is she okay, though?"

Jocelyn took in a breath—and then reconsidered once she realised Yu was asking about Clary's mental health. "She'll get there," was all she said.

* * *

 _God, she hated pedestrian crossings. Even when the street was empty and the cars had long since left, they still took their time to tell someone it was safe to cross. Yu tapped her foot against the ground rapidly. At this rate, she really would be eating Elmo's dog food._

 _Clary grinned up at her. "You're hopeless," she teased._

 _So what if she was? Yu was impatient and proud of it. It just wasn't her fault that the world moved slower than she did. "I don't wanna eat dog food," she muttered._

 _Once again Clary scoffed at her, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms across her chest. "I'm not making you eat it if we get in trouble."_

 _Yu groaned. She tapped her foot faster against the pavement. The damn light wasn't changing, no matter how often she tapped the crossing button._

" _Screw it." She shoved her bike out in front of her and began to cross. Clary followed her closely behind. "We're jaywalking."_

* * *

Plastic spoons sucked. Sure, they kept you from scooping out someone's eye— _like that's a thing most people want to do_ , Yu thought sarcastically—but the way they were made was hazardous. Every time she took a large spoonful of pudding, she wound up cutting the inside of her mouth as she removed the spoon.

But, she reminded herself as she opened a third cup, it was pudding. Pudding made everything better.

"It's been forever since I've had something as good as this."

Clary looked at her sideways, stirring up her own pudding. "You've survived on hospital food for five days."

Yu nodded. "A lifetime," she agreed.

The smaller girl just rolled her eyes and finished off her pudding. There wasn't a lot of other people in the visitors' lounge; it was mostly parents and their children getting some fresh air after surgery, with the occasional dislocated shoulder or broken leg sitting somewhere. Yu would probably be lumped in with them—wheelchair and leg cast and whatnot—which made leaving her room feel a little less intimidating. Ever since that article was published and Jocelyn mentioned how many companies reached out to her to interview the two teens, Yu had been stressing over the possibility of "unorthodox" reporters showing up to visit.

Like in the movies.

It was nice to see Clary was okay, though. All she had was a small scrape on either arm and a small bump on the back of her head. Nothing life-threatening, though the exhaustion she showed was a little concerning. Yu still wasn't game enough to ask anyone how much of Clary's blood had been needed to keep her stable.

Thoughts like those weren't good to dwell on. She stabbed the pudding with her spoon, grinning gleefully at how easily it fell apart. "What'd I miss with the fearsome foursome?" she asked.

Clary sank into her seat. A whole new demeanour washed over her, displaying amusement and embarrassment at the people in question. "You mean _Caffeine Crisis_? They're doing _swell_ with the new name."

Yu snorted around her spoon. "Was the fact that they get mostly brewhouse gigs the reasoning behind the name?" she giggled.

"Kirk just really likes coffee, apparently."

"Oh, no, sure. Totally an obvious reason for the name." Yu shook her head with a final chuckle. "And is the Thong still a thing?"

Clary groaned. "Unfortunately. She's shown up to all the practices this week now that she knows you aren't there."

"She hates their music, though."

"But she likes making out with Eric. A _lot_." Clary didn't linger on the subject of the band or Sheila Barbarino for long. Neither of them enjoyed talking about that train wreck of a relationship, though sometimes it was a nice kind of reassurance. An, _at least I don't have a relationship that shallow,_ kind of reassurance. "Luke's been taking care of Elmo, too. I think the li'l guy might be warming up to him."

Now that was a surprise. Elmo hated Luke for some reason, always going off and growling at him whenever he entered the house. Luke always went out of his way to avoid Elmo, too, because of how territorial that the dog got at times. Even though it was a surprise to Yu, it was also touching.

She didn't know Luke as well as she did Jocelyn, which made the kindness he'd shown mean all the more to her. It meant that he'd be willing to help a friend of the Frays if they needed it, especially if the Frays themselves couldn't do it. With Clary on lockdown and Jocelyn bouncing between the two girls, it would've been easy for them to leave Elmo with extra food—but they didn't. They put in effort.

"Tell him I said 'thanks'." Yu smiled at Clary. She liked the idea of Elmo getting along with Luke, anyway. "Can't wait to see which of them is Turner and which is Hooch."

* * *

 _The screeching left a ringing in her ears. Yu flinched and paused, almost tripping over her bike as the revving of an engine got closer. Clary bumped into her back, just as confused as she was, and let out a surprised squeak._

 _A red car. Small, two doors. That was all that Yu could coherently think when she laid eyes on it. She wasn't aware of how close it was getting or how fast it was moving. It wasn't at the forefront of her mind._

 _But at the very least, her body knew._

 _She threw her bike in front of her, hoping to create a barrier between her and the car. Without even waiting for Clary to recognise the danger rushing at them, Yu slammed her open palm against the shorter girl's chest. Clary stumbled back, the force of Yu's push just barely sending her back over the pavement, and she crashed to the ground hands-first._

 _Relief settled in Yu's chest for just a moment. For just a moment she was unaware of the bike being thrown back at her by the car. For just a moment she was unaware of the car slamming into her and throwing her into the air._

 _Once that moment passed, there was only pain._

* * *

Party horns were the best. Loud and in your face, and they always came in bright colours. Yu loved getting them for all types of celebrations.

And the best part of them was that no one could yell at you if the celebration was in your name. At least in Yu's opinion it was. This was why she stuffed two of them in her mouth upon arriving home, and this was why she blew them as often as possible once the door was opened.

It was a small welcome home party on her behalf; little balloons with stars on them hanging from the kitchen table, a platter of sandwiches just waiting to be devoured. At the centre of it all was a red velvet cake—Yu's favourite. She gladly walked herself inside with her crutches, Clary and Simon at her heels, and made a beeline for Elmo. The border collie almost knocked her over as he whined and sniffed her shirt. Before Yu could even bother scratching his ear, Elmo was back by Luke's side and sitting dutifully next to the man.

The gathering was sweet and the most fun she'd had with a broken leg. All it took was almost a month of waiting and putting up with terrible hospital food. Even as her favourite music began to play over the speakers and fill the house, the mood didn't diminish. Simon and Clary danced in the living room, throwing a balloon between the two of them; Luke and Jocelyn stood in the kitchen and cleaned the dishes, talking amongst themselves. Yu could just lose herself in the calm, munching away at endless cake and listening to _Eurythmics_ play on a loop.

She was on her third slice of cake by the time Jocelyn came over and took a seat next to her. The woman had her hair up in a messy bun, the remnants of paint still speckled around her neck and on her knuckles. Yu offered her a slice, but was politely declined in favour of a concerned stare.

"How have you been feeling?" Jocelyn asked quickly.

Yu tilted her head at her. It was an odd question, considering she'd been right there for the girl's recovery process. "Fine?" she said.

Jocelyn chewed her lip. It must not have been the right question to ask. "I mean," she started, then stopped. She looked helplessly over to Luke, then back to Yu. "I mean, you haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary?"

That was definitely more specific than asking how she felt. Yu shrugged at her and shovelled a piece of her cake into her mouth, savouring the cream cheese icing. "I feel pretty good," she decided. "At first I was all wonky from the pain meds—" Jocelyn furrowed her brows— "but now my head's clearer and everything. Think I won't even need the crutches for long, y'know?"

"Wonky?" Jocelyn leaned forward in her chair.

"Like, hallucinating. Some people get that as a side effect." Yu chuckled softly. "For a few weeks I thought my nurse was blue. That kind of wonky."

A nervous laugh came from Jocelyn. It didn't do much to make Yu feel like she'd said the wrong thing. "Is there something wrong?" Yu asked slowly.

Jocelyn glanced at Luke again—and this time Yu followed her gaze. Luke stood silently by the fridge, arms crossed over his chest as he stared the two down almost sternly. A chill ran down Yu's spine. She was quick to look back at Jocelyn, finding a nervous smile waiting for her.

"Just don't hesitate to come to me if something feels off from here." Jocelyn gave her hand a little squeeze and wandered back to Luke's side at that.

* * *

 _There were so many people around her, prodding and lifting her and making her scream out in pain. Her whole body was on fire, the heat lingering in her leg and threatening to melt her bones. All she could recognise was Clary's voice in the distance, following the men and women who carried her and tried to keep her talking_ — _keep her screaming._

" _She might not make the trip," the man stressed. He wiped at her leg, removing some of the fire, but it soon returned with a vengeance._

 _The woman cursed under her breath, shouting something to people whose names she hadn't heard earlier. All Yu could see was the bright light inside the truck shining down on her. "Do you know your friend's blood type?" the woman asked. It took Yu some time to realise she was directing the question to Clary._

 _The truck shifted, the man beginning to tell her that she shouldn't be in there, but Clary ignored him. "I don't think she even knows what her blood type is," Clary wheezed. Yu tried to lift her head and see if she could spot the girl. Once her gaze landed on her leg, though, she began to feel faint. That was a lot of blood…_

" _Charlie, are you a universal donor?" the woman demanded. Charlie_ — _the man doubting Yu would make a trip to the hospital_ — _swore under his breath._

" _Positive. You?"_

" _A." The woman clicked her tongue and banged on the wall behind Yu. "Push it as fast as it can go!"_

 _And then came Clary's voice again, offering quite possibly the most beautiful chance at not bleeding out that Yu had ever heard: "I'm O-negative."_

 _They harassed her with questions. How old was she? Was she sure that was her blood type? Did she have anything bad in her blood? Was she certain she wasn't too hurt to donate a pint or two?_

 _Yu stared up at Clary once she came to stand by the gurney. She barely felt the needle go into her arm, too focused on the small scrapes on Clary's palms. She hoped that was the worst of it._

* * *

 **Let me know what you think of this prologue! I'll be back in two weeks with chapter one, and I hope Yu is still as enjoyable as her old self :)**


	2. Chapter 1

**Liiiitle bit early with the update (by a whole week) but I figured since I took so long to even publish this that the least I could do was update early, amirite? Also just a reminder, which this update I will be deleting the old version of the story.**

 **We get a bit of a slow start here but hopefully the next few chapters speed things up a little. Also, great big thank you to everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed! It's good to know the story still has people wanting to see Yu's journey after how long I was gone lol**

 **I also answered this in a PM but I figured I'd post it here for anyone else wondering. Right now, the closest faceclaim I can think of that matches Yu is Chloe Bennet with shorter hair. If I find one that works better I'll update you all on it, but for now that's the best match for her!**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

It'd been a while since she'd last gone on an early morning run. All that time laying in a bed, walking around cautiously on a crutch, left her legs almost aching for action. Even after she'd been given the okay to walk on her own and perform more strenuous tasks like running and jumping, _something_ always kept her from going out on her own. If it wasn't Jocelyn hovering over her like she did Clary, it was Clary insisting Yu take her with her "just in case". As much as it was starting to get on her nerves, part of her was happy they cared.

But it still got on her nerves.

Finally awake before either Fray that morning, Yu was quick to change into her tracksuit and sneak down the stairs of the brownstone apartment. Not even Madame Dorothea heard her go past—though then again, Dorothea never cared to know what the Frays or Yu were up to on any given day. On a normal day she'd ride her bike over to the nearest park—which happened to be Central Park—but given the lack of bike on Yu's part, she was forced to settle for the blocks around and beyond the brownstone.

The sun was barely rising but people were already preparing for work. A rare few were doing the opposite, blearily opening their doors with red eyes from drinking or yawns from the graveyard shift. The night owls turning in, the morning people taking their places. This was one of Yu's favourite things to witness of a morning.

After she was a good distance from the brownstone, she broke into a light jog. Her sneakers scuffed twice against the pavement before they fell into a silent rhythm beneath her. No one bothered to watch the kid who moved past them at a moderate rate. It was normal for this time of the morning for joggers to come out. Yu was just enjoying it more than usual, satisfied by the fresh morning air hitting her face as she slowly gained speed. Eventually her jog turned into a run, and then Yu was well on her way on a new route.

Alone time like this was what Yu looked forward to upon waking up. People could be overwhelming sometimes, and Yu was naturally more on the quieter side. She may have been the most outspoken of her friends—more than the stubborn Clary or the musicians she spent so much time with—but at the end of the day, even Yu needed to find time for herself. "Me time" just happened to be right at the start of the day for her.

She arrived at a somewhat busy intersection, occupied by a small number of people patiently waiting for the light to turn green. A few of them were joggers like her, a few early morning commuters who had to get somewhere before nine. Yu leaned her hands against her knees as she regained her breath and waited with them; there was a dull ache in her leg, probably due to the amount of time it took to even get back into her routine.

Another person stopped beside her, occupied with something in his hand. It hummed and hummed, almost vibrating like a phone. Yu glanced up at him, hoping to get a peek at what he was so focused on—but she soon found herself distracted by his appearance. He was handsome—stupidly handsome—with almost flax curls framing his face. Yu wasn't really one to fall for a pretty face unless it was a girl's, but this boy might have proved to be an exception. But the pleasing features weren't all that held her attention; no, the part of him that intrigued her most was the tattoos lining his arms and peeking over the collar of his v-neck, so dark that they looked almost like they were burned onto his skin rather than inked in.

A pair of tawny eyes fell on her then, having noticed her stare. He kept her gaze for a few seconds, eyes narrowing in thought, before his brows raised. Yu cleared her throat softly and stood up straight again. The device in his hand just kept humming.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "Didn't mean to stare. I like your tattoos."

She pointed meekly to his arm, and immediately an amused smile broke out across his face. He looked almost like he was about to start scheming something—it was the same look Erkan Burakgazi, in all his middle-aged glory, would get whenever he was told not to embarrass Yu during outings.

"Thanks," he said slowly. He glanced down at his device and waved his arm about. The device hummed louder as he moved it towards his right. "Most people don't notice them."

Without another word to her, he turned on his heel and ran straight into traffic. Yu gawked after him, hand flying to her mouth as she watched him weave around cars and deftly avoid a grisly fate. It was like he didn't have a single care in the world, too focused on the humming of his device and what direction he should go. No one called out after him, either; none of them even noticed he existed.

The lights changed, the crowd moving forward hurriedly to get to their destinations. Yu jumped and quickly followed. She didn't want to waste time spent crossing on a boy who clearly knew what he was doing. Even if what he was doing was dangerous.

It wasn't unusual for jaywalkers to be out and about. New York was always going to be filled with them, just as it was always going to be filled with reckless drivers and the bustle of urban living. Accepting that it happened was easy enough when you grew up in New York almost all your life. Imagining it as something that wouldn't backfire because people were lucky was harder. It wasn't just the jaywalkers Yu was having trouble watching face the streets—the cars were rubbing her the wrong way, their insistent honks and revving engines making her stomach churn. The thought of one of them suddenly changing direction and hurtling towards her again… Well, it was an understatement to say she was eager to stay out of hospital for a long time.

The biggest problem with her newfound unease was definitely how much it affected her running. She'd slow down every so often, fingers twitching at the sight of traffic lights and crossings; she couldn't keep up a rhythm with all the engines roaring around her, nor with all the daredevils who had better things to do than wait at a pedestrian crossing.

At the very least, there was a small construction area she could cut through to get to the park. No activity—most likely due to the hour of the morning it was—and definitely no cars, which put Yu in a somewhat calmer state upon spotting it. Everyone seemed to be ignoring the makeshift path that had been set up between the site and the apartment complex next to it, which meant that Yu would be free to wander on her own and catch her breath.

One foot in front of the other. She kept her chant of _left, right, left, right_ going through her mind as she banked right and jogged on the spot at the next set of lights. One minute. Two. Finally a flash of green appeared and told her to move. She crossed with a speed that bordered on sprinting, passersby ignoring her still. Yu's feet were finally planted firmly on the pavement once more and her anxiety soon faded to the back of her mind. The morning walks she loved were coming back slowly.

True to her expectations, the construction area was absolutely abandoned. No one was even emerging from the walled path beside it. Yu beamed at the sight of it and jogged along the shaded path without a second thought.

Normally Yu wouldn't take a risky path on her own like this, especially without a phone to call for help or a pocket knife to defend herself. Her house was closer to Central Park than the Frays' brownstone apartment, and most of the people who frequented Central were dog owners that stopped her on occasion to ask about Elmo. She was usually in a safe place, like Erkan and Izumo always demanded she be whenever she went out on her own—after all, for all the height and bulk she carried there was always someone bigger and badder that was waiting for the right moment to strike. But after all the trips she'd made with Simon and Clary downtown and all the nights they walked home late without getting mugged, Yu liked to think nothing bad would happen. It was still too early in the morning for creeps to come out from the woodworks. Still too early for a young girl like herself to worry about getting jumped in an alley.

There was a patch of sunlight shining around the corner, probably peeking through the apartments behind the site. Yu looked along the building beside her for any signs of windows or plants, wondering if anyone would ever take advantage of the light around now. Small potted flowers would look pretty along the sidewalk, she thought to herself; it was just a shame that no one seemed to want to add a bit of personality to the area.

Yu paused once she reached the patch of sun, throwing out her arms to take in the warmth. She hadn't realised how cold a shaded area could be until the warmth had returned. She unzipped the jacket of her tracksuit and shook out her leg a little. It didn't take long for her to warm up as she stood there, though she knew the warmth would disappear soon enough once she continued on the path. The sunlight only lasted for a few feet, and then it was back to a path in the shade that continued on until an opening towards the next street.

She let out a huff and took a step forward. Just as her foot touched the ground once more, a loud thud sounded out near her. Yu stared down at the foot in disbelief—had that been her? No, it couldn't have been. She certainly didn't have enough weight to her to make the ground feel as though it shook upon impact. Maybe something had fallen down behind her? Yu scrunched up her face and looked over her shoulder, hoping that was the case.

She expected to see a big pile of clothes or something like a tire, but she definitely did not expect the oversized Doberman that glared right back at her. Yu blinked once, twice—that couldn't be an actual dog, could it? It was almost as big as her, like those Russian dogs that were bred to hunt bears!

It wasn't just its size that made her question the dog. As she turned on her heel to look at it fully, it started to raise its hackles and snarl at her. Red eyes—red, glowing eyes—just watched her like a threat, and its tail—its impossibly _spiked_ and _studded_ tail—lashed left and right behind it. Yu took a cautious step backwards, swallowing a lump in her throat. The dog-thing just snarled louder and moved forward to keep up with her.

"You're a big boy," she cooed nervously. The dog-thing just get snarling, slobber dripping from its _very sharp_ teeth. "W—Where's your owner?"

It let out a bark, and Yu swore it sounded otherworldly. It echoed through the air like a horn, deep and powerful and commanding. _Shut up_ , the bark demanded. _I don't like you_.

She knew enough about dogs to know when one was unfriendly. With a silent prayer that the large legs on the canine weren't enough to carry its gargantuan body in a chase, Yu turned on her heel again and sprinted down the path. She was barely halfway to the opening to begin with, and with her luck she'd have to climb up and over the chain link fence separating the construction site from the rest of the world just to get away.

Large paws thundered after her, before it stopped abruptly and began to whine and whimper in agony. Yu slowed her run to turn back around, see what the hubbub was, and was treated to an even more curious sight than the dog itself. Its paws and face were sizzling—burning, almost—with each attempt it made to cross the patch of sun blocking its path to Yu. She watched in amazement as its coarse black fur seemed to bubble and boil each time the light hit it, almost like it was lethal to the dog. Yu let out a wheeze, thankful for the sunlight's protection, and set off on a jog down the path. She didn't have to run for her life now, especially with the sun out.

Except that she did—as soon as the discovery was made, clouds drifted in front of the sun and covered up that one little lifeline she had left. Before Yu could even find the energy to break into another sprint, she heard the pounding of the dog's paws against the pavement behind her. It took mere seconds for the dog to catch up to her, and she was given just _one_ to whirl on her heel and prepare for a scuffle.

On a normal day Yu would just scream at the top of her lungs for help. Beg for someone in the apartment to get the dog off of her. But today was different—today there was something primal in the back of her mind, urging her on feverently. _Fight it, fight it, fight it._ Flight was not an option—not an instinctual one, at least.

Her fingers twitched as the dog leapt at her, jaws opened impossibly wide and aiming right for her upper body. Yu braced herself, hands flying up as her feet skidded across the pavement. She was aware of an immense pressure along her shoulders and arms, the pain of sharp teeth digging into her palms. But all Yu could focus on was the fact that she'd just _caught_ this dog by the mouth, and was now holding it at bay by the jaws. No matter how hard the dog tried, it couldn't chomp down on her hands and make her regret her life choices; instead it whined again, unable to fight back against her grip.

Yu wasn't able to freak out quick enough over the situation. As quickly as she'd stopped it, her hands flew outwards alongside the dog's face and jaw. It howled—God, it hurt her ears—and scuttled a few feet away from her. Its jawbone lay pitifully on the ground near Yu, sizzling like the dog had when it tried to cross the patch of sun. As the dog shook its head, tongue wagging about wildly, and Yu held her hands close to her shirt in pain, the jawbone burned away into nothing. All that was left behind was the smallest stain of ash against the pavement.

"What the actual hell?" Yu gasped. The primal instinct was fading fast, fear taking over as the sight of her now bloodied hands brought her back to reality. What the hell did she just do? Why wasn't she running, or calling for help? _What in the world was this dog-thing?_

She froze on the spot then, her legs turning to jelly even as she realised that the dog was coming back for a round two. The opening to the next street was just ten, maybe fifteen feet away. She could make it back into the sun, she thought desperately. She could outrun it now that it was hurt, she tried to convince herself. But her legs were stuck, suddenly weighing a ton and refusing to budge. Whatever strength had just torn this dog's jaw from its face had vanished, right when she needed it most.

Yu broke out into a cold sweat as the dog reared back in preparation to pounce. She really wanted to avoid going back to hospital so soon after getting out—and getting some kind of facial reconstruction surgery if she survived the attack didn't sound like a fun time on top of rehab. Her fingers dug painfully into the wounds on her palms. With her breath caught in her throat, Yu squeezed her eyes shut and simply waited for the dog to land on her.

But it didn't. Instead it let out the most horrific howl that she was sure even people in the next state over would hear, and then it faded into silence as a sizzling sound took over. She was hesitant to open her eyes, scared that she'd jinx her freedom if she took a peek. Even as she heard footsteps—normal, regular footsteps—move towards her, she refused to open her eyes.

A finger tapped her shoulder almost playfully. She squeaked, flicked out her fingers, and felt the blood fly off her fingertips.

"Don't mean to assume," a male voice, familiar enough for her to put a face to it, said, "but did _you_ rip off its jaw?"

Yu's eyes fluttered open slowly. She didn't dare expect anything when she saw what was in front of her; after the last time she made an assumption of what was near her, she couldn't risk it. Even as she was met with that stupidly handsome face and those striking tattoos, she didn't dare assume it was the very same boy she'd spoken to mere moments ago.

Her hands shook as she lifted them for inspection. His question went ignored for a few seconds, a very clear sign of annoyance on his face as his eyebrow quirked. The palms were well and truly torn open, red around the wound and bleeding at a slow but thick pace. If Yu looked carefully enough, she could see each individual hole that the dog's teeth had made.

When she looked back at the boy, she couldn't shake the fact that his eyes were an unnatural shade of amber.

"I think I did," she wheezed.

He nodded, annoyance now replaced with curiosity. He looked her up and down, stroked his chin with contemplation, before circling around her once. After a painful moment of being put under examination, he asked, "You're mundane?"

Yu blinked. "What?"

He nodded again. "Definitely mundane." He circled her again, and this time she actually paid attention to her surroundings. The dog's disappearance hadn't clicked until just now, but like with its jaw all she could find was a dark stain against the pavement. "But then again," the boy mused to himself, "no mundane could do _that_ to a hellhound. Let alone survive a fight with one."

Yu glanced over her shoulder at him. She looked him up and down, and it took everything in her to ignore the empty sheath at his belt. If he had a sheath, then where was the knife? How did she not notice it at the crossing? "That wasn't a hellhound," she scoffed. "It was... "

She shrugged. He looked at her with that amused smirk again, begging her to come up with something.

"It was just a big dog with a bad temper," she decided.

He chuckled and shook his head. "You just summed up a hellhound in one sentence. Good job."

"Hellhounds aren't real," Yu added.

The boy simply ignored her, instead turning his attention back to the stain on the pavement. He walked over with ease and bent down in front of it, and when he stood back up he was inspecting something with a frown.

"You're not serious," Yu scoffed. "This is a prank or something. Ashton Kutcher is going to poke his head out a window and tell me I've been punk'd."

He turned back at her when she said that. His expression was a hilarious mixture of horror, confusion, and amusement—each one took over his face right after the last, before finally they all stuck in place.

"Don't know him or what 'punk'd' means," he said slowly, "but that's not going to happen." Before she could so much as argue again, he shoved the charred item in his hand into the sheath and said, "It's daylight, so vampire is out of the question. Most faeries don't have the strength to do _that_ —" he looked over at the patch the jaw had left behind— "and you don't seem to have a warlock mark anywhere." He looked her up and down again, then seemed to appear satisfied with his next question. "You haven't been bitten by any large, feral dogs lately, have you?"

Before she could even stop herself, Yu scrunched up her face and lifted her palms for him to see.

"Before today," he clarified.

"Does a domesticated dog count?" Elmo certainly had his moments, after all.

He snorted at her. "Does this domesticated dog only stay during the full moon?"

"Oh my God, you ass." Yu threw her hands up in the air. "I'm not a werewolf—they aren't even real, for crying out loud. What is wrong with you?"

He walked back over to her this time. Those gold eyes were right in her face, pushing into her personal space and making her all too aware of how long his eyelashes were. Yu stumbled backwards, almost tripping over her own feet in the process.

"I think the better question," he muttered, "is what's wrong with _you_?"

* * *

 **And that's chapter one! Let me know what you all thought, and I hope to see you all again in a fortnight for chapter three. Hopefully if I get enough chapters written up in that time I can switch to weekly updates instead of fortnightly, but we'll have to see :)**


	3. Chapter 2

**Hey all! I know I said fortnightly updates, but it turns out I have to go away for a week and will miss next week's update day, which means y'all get a third chapter early? Do with this what ye will, and hopefully I can return to a proper schedule ASAP after this trip is over.**

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

Trusting a complete stranger to keep something secret was, unsurprisingly, just as stressful as trusting them with your life.

She didn't even know what she expected when she made the deal with him, but it certainly wasn't an annoyingly heightened awareness to the… _strange_ things happening around her. The strange appendages some people had or the way some of them looked almost mesmerising when they met her gaze. Worst of all was the way her suspicions—her childhood beliefs—had been confirmed by a moss-haired man with no concept of personal space.

"Are you a faerie?" she'd asked him just days ago. He'd looked up at her with a bored expression at first, green eyes almost dim. But once he realised that she was, as Jace had put it, a mundane, he was all smiles and invitation.

Yu was sick of it after three days. She punched him square in the jaw when he harassed her during an outing with Clary, and for the rest of the day her knuckles were sore and shaking. Clary was still scared to ask what it was about, but at this point a lot of Yu's outbursts were chalked up to a simple "group mother instinct".

She didn't want to believe that this Jace Wayland character was right about the dog that attacked her being a hellhound, and she certainly didn't want to believe that the world wasn't what she'd thought it was for the last seventeen years. But the evidence was astounding; she'd actually run into a woman who smelled of wet dog during a morning run and commented on Yu owning a dog, which had been written off as Yu "looking like a dog person". She'd bumped into a pixie on his way to a club with other fair folk, and had even spotted a bouncer that had red skin and clawed hands.

The world was unraveling around her, and she wasn't sure if she liked it very much. Especially not when everyone else was still oblivious to it.

But at least she had a guide through it all. An annoying, stupidly pretty guide, but a guide nonetheless. They'd exchanged phone numbers after the first encounter, Jace promising to look into what was "wrong" with her—which she still took offense in—as long as she had enough information about herself to dig through. She wasn't sure what one lone boy could do, especially in a world like the one he lived and breathed each day, but he sure did seem confident in himself at least.

Today seemed to say otherwise, though. He'd called her out to a diner she'd never heard of, walking her inside and finding a booth for them. Yu thought Jace would go into his usual spiel about how he was so close to an answer that he could taste it, but instead he rested his chin atop his hands and announced, "I've hit a wall."

Yu snorted at him. A waitress stopped by their booth and handed them each a menu, then left them to decide their meals. "In other words," she sang, "I'm not the one who's messed up."

Jace pouted at her, appalled at the way she'd phrased the situation. "I never said you were messed up. I just said there was something wrong with you."

She glared at him.

"Who cares about what was said by who, though?" he added. He looked over his menu once before setting it down entirely. "The only ideas I have left are you either being a Shadowhunter, or you being an insanely strong mundane."

"I like that second one."

"That second one is the least likely."

Yu rolled her eyes at him. She looked over some of the items—the pancakes looked particularly tempting today—before flipping over the page. This was clearly the supernatural menu, as the first thing available was deep fried bat wings and raw meat.

"That's the Downworlder menu," Jace said idly. Yu scrunched up her face at him. She didn't dare give him the satisfaction of an infamous infodump by asking what Downworlder meant.

She continued to read over it, imagining what each one would look like on a plate. Fairy plums, fish eyes, blood types A through O— "The only other thing I haven't talked much about is an accident I was in," she mentioned, "but that only resulted in a transfusion from a friend."

Jace's interest was piqued. The waitress returned before he could say anything, and yet he still beat Yu to their orders. "Pancakes, a BLT, a caramel milkshake and some green tea. Make sure to put a lot of sugar in the tea," he added. The waitress left with a nod, handing the order to the rather hairy man behind the counter at the front of the diner. Yu didn't bother worrying about how much fur would wind up in her food, though—she was more concerned about the fact that Jace just ordered for the both of them.

"You get pancakes and over sweetened tea everywhere I take you," he scoffed. "Don't think it wouldn't stick. Now tell me about this transfusion you had."

"It was just that. Put the tube in the arm and bleed into someone else." Yu shook her head. "I was out of it with the painkillers. I couldn't tell you when I started seeing this stuff afterwards, but the transfusion was the last time I _didn't_."

He nodded, humming. "What's the friend you got it from like?"

Clary? Boy, how did Yu sum up Clary Fray? " _Mundane_?" she said. "A small spitfire of a _mundane_?"

Jace grunted in distaste. "Not helping the case of your second option," he deadpanned. "I'll get your birthday and the area you were born in for reference. See if I can just look into the archives without getting interrogated." A bitter look passed over him then, like the scenario running through his mind was the worst thing he could conjure up on the spot. "By the Angel, this is going to be a pain…"

She shrugged at him. Over by the counter she could see meals being pumped out one by one, cooked almost too fast to be real. "Have fun checking the Toronto birth records, then."

"You're Canadian?" Jace looked her up and down in shock. "You don't sound Canadian."

"Canadian- _born_. And what the hell is a Canadian supposed to sound like?"

He stared her down with a contemplative gaze. Just as the waitress came back to set down the plates with their food, Jace replied glibly, "A Canadian."

He was impossible. Yu couldn't wait for the day where he finally admitted she was normal and then leave her alone. Their drinks were set down soon after, and Yu could've sworn she saw the waitress's solid blue eye wink at her. She was dumbfounded and excited—she liked it when pretty girls flirted with her, mundane or not at this point—and the feeling was only multiplied when she looked down at her tea. Perched next to the mug was a napkin with a phone number written on it, as well as the name Sebille.

Yu picked up the number, the dumb smile still on her face, and looked back over at the waitress. So her name was Sebille. It was a pretty name. It wasn't very often that she met cute girls that were interested in her, let alone any that openly flirted. Maybe she could ask Sebille out through a phone call and—

As Jace bit into his BLT, he said, "She collects elf-locks."

Yu glared daggers at him. "Don't _ruin_ it!" she snapped.

He just laughed at her. "Glad to know you're educated enough to not give a faerie your hair when they ask you for it."

There was no argument to be had here. She refused to start one like every other day he'd ruined something for her. She may have been dismayed over the fact that werewolves didn't walk around on two legs when the full moon came out and argued the possibility of it, but she wasn't going to touch fey lore this early in the morning.

So instead of saying anything, she tore apart her pancakes violently with her fork.

They ate in silence for a few moments, the slowly growing amount of customers in the diner conversing animatedly around them. One person in the booth behind them was insisting that a popular actor in the movie scene right now was a warlock to their friends; at the table closest to Jace, where three faeries sat and munched blankly on their fruits, a conversation about an upcoming party that was being hosted in Brooklyn went on. If there was one thing Yu was having trouble with swallowing, it was the fact that the supernatural world functioned just as normally as the mundane world. Talks of parties and conspiracy theories, eating at a diner and hanging out with friends. They did it all, with just a simple addition of being slightly _more_ separating them from the mundanes.

She got halfway through the small stack before she sighed heavily. Jace was already three-quarters of the way through his own food, pausing on occasion to sip at the milkshake. Even what she and Jace were doing was normal, to a degree. If they sat in silence, they were doing the very same thing Yu would do with Simon and Clary after school some days. If they talked, they were recreating a much more serious version of some of the _Dungeons and Dragons_ campaigns she attended.

Sebille came back to ask if they wanted anything else once their plates were empty, and to Yu's surprise Jace declined politely. The faerie collected their plates, throwing a quick smile in Yu's direction as she did so. Once Sebille was gone again, Jace chugged the remainder of his milkshake.

"I'll see how far I can get without being asked what I'm doing," he told her. "Once someone catches on, though, I won't be able to keep this a secret."

Which would mean that Yu would have to go to the Institute Jace lived at, like he'd originally suggested. Her heart sank at the realisation. Since they'd started the investigation she'd been afraid of being whisked away somewhere—the fact that this place was called the _Institute_ didn't help her fears of being labelled crazy.

"Alright," she sighed. "I hate it, but alright."

* * *

"How was the run?"

Yu kicked off her sneakers with a grunt. "Not enough dogs," she told the redhead. Clary just laughed softly, barely even looking up from her sketch.

"Don't forget to call your parents, by the way," Clary added. She tilted her head to an almost uncomfortable angle, her elbow lifted up into the air as her pencil softly poked at the page.

She hummed, thankful for the reminder, and power walked to the bedroom they shared. In her haste, Yu almost tripped over the mattress on the floor. Her toe ached horrendously, even as she took her weight off of it to reach under Clary's bed. It wasn't until she'd opened the laptop and lifted her foot up onto Clary's bed that the aching began to subside, but even then it still bothered her.

If it weren't for Clary's reminders every few days, Yu would completely forget the time difference between Trabzon and New York. She'd forget to see how her parents were doing, and then she would panic about not going with them to Turkey for the summer. It was a trip to celebrate Pembe giving birth at the start of the year, and Yu really wanted to go—but a phobia of flying was harder to curb than she'd hoped. She was lucky that Jocelyn had a spare mattress and free time to keep an eye on Yu for the summer; luckier that Clary had more sense to remember when would be the best time to call the Burakgazi family over Skype than Yu did.

It'd be about five in the afternoon in Trabzon—just an hour or so before Nine and Dede hosted everyone for dinner. The sheer size of their dinners was legendary, from what Erkan would tell her of his youth; a long table that, once upon a time, only had to fit seven children, would be lined with an array of dishes for everyone to pick at over the course of the night. Tales of Nine's desserts always made Yu envious of her cousins.

The program rang for a minute or so, the icon of her parents' wedding photo teasing her with the possibility of them picking up. Yu felt her lips tug into a frown as the dial tone slowly faded into the flat beeps signalling no answer.

They were probably busy. She would probably have to settle for sending them a message for now, try again tomorrow.

She shut the laptop and slid it back under the bed. Her toe was no longer hurting, back to its normal self, and she took advantage of this to return to the small living room Clary was still sitting in. The redhead was no longer in her bent-head and raised-elbow position, her back laid flat against the wall by the window and her knees bent just high enough to provide a stable surface for her sketchbook.

When Yu flopped onto the couch face-first, Clary asked, "No answer?"

"Probably went out," Yu said into one of the cushions. Clary hummed in agreement. "New project? Or just doodling?"

"Bit of both." Paper was flipped and turned, gaining Yu's attention. From what she could see once her face was out of the cushion, Clary's presented sketch looked almost like a class photo. Yu raised a brow at it. Clary pulled a photo reference from just a few pages beneath the sketch, and immediately Yu recognised the St. Francis Xavier uniform. "Thought I'd try facial details from a distance and sitting positions."

"Nice." Yu gave her a thumbs up. "It looks pretty good so far. You gonna colour it, or leave it?"

Clary let out a thoughtful groan. She was asking herself the very same question, from the looks of it. "I might add colour. Don't know right now."

Yu nodded. She went back to stuffing her face into the cushion while Clary pressed pencil to paper once more. Moments passed, filled only by the sounds of cars driving past and horns tooting in the distance. The sound of activity had always been Yu's favourite background noise during the day, but some nights it was too annoying to sleep through. She wasn't sure how Clary and Jocelyn put up with it every night—though then again, after almost eleven years of living in New York Yu could almost say she was used to it as well. She didn't like it, per se, but she was getting used to it.

Eventually the sound of pencil scritches was replaced by smooth sweeps. She listened for a few seconds, assumed Clary had made a mistake once she heard the girl blow softly at the sketchbook. The sound of art—Yu still couldn't believe a normally visual medium had a sound—was something else she'd grown used to during her time in the brownstone so far. She'd never noticed it before, convinced that it was something people always did in silence and solitude, but now she couldn't stop hearing the careful brush strokes Jocelyn left on a canvas or the delicate shapes Clary would draw in her sketchbook late at night.

Sometimes she wished she had some kind of artistic inclining like theirs. Yu enjoyed taking photos every so often, but sometimes she wished she could create things against a blank canvas like the Frays rather than search for a scene that was _just right_.

Maybe she could start looking for references and give it a whirl once school started back up. She'd always liked how watercolour paintings and charcoal sketches looked. But that could wait for another time, she told herself. No need to rush into something that'll take lots of practice and testing.

She shifted her focus to the fact that the sounds of a worried Fray in the house were absent this morning, to the fact that Clary was drawing freely in the living room and not in her bedroom.

"Jocelyn out?" Yu asked. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up onto her hand.

Clary nodded. "She's getting more supplies. Ran out last night, apparently."

"Must be a monster of a painting, then." She watched as Clary frowned at her sketch and erased another corner of it. "Does that mean it's safe to double check with Simon for Pandemonium tonight?"

Clary looked up in alarm. She may have remembered the things important to Yu's day, but she was terrible at remembering plans that didn't involve a coffee shop most times. Yu grinned as the girl scrambled for her phone and quickly searched for Simon's number.

"I can't believe I forgot," Clary whispered in horror. Her hand was over her mouth as she waited for the boy to pick up, and very soon she was spluttering out their plans without giving Simon much of a chance to say anything. "You'll meet us at the diner, right?"

Silence hung through the air of the living room. Yu could only watch on in amusement as Clary nodded over and over to Simon's replies. She did know he couldn't see her, didn't she?

"Okay. Cool. We'll meet you at six." Clary hung up. She let out a monster of a relieved breath, practically dropping to the floor beside her sketchbook.

"Dinner at six? Club at seven?" Yu propped herself up until she was sitting normally on the couch. She stretched her arms as Clary picked up her pencil and book, tucking them safely under her arm.

"If it all goes right," Clary sighed, "yes."

Yu snorted at her. "Since when do your shenanigans with Simon go wrong?" she teased.


	4. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! I'm back from my holiday with a new chapter for everyone, which I hope you all enjoy! Things will start picking up from here plot-wise, so let me know what you think :D**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

Even from outside the club, standing in line and waiting for the bouncer to let them in, the music was surging up her legs with every hard thump of the bass. It was infectious and loud, inviting everyone waiting outside to dance along with its beat. People around their trio nodded their heads or tapped their hands against their thighs to the beat, and Yu was no exception to this as well. Simon and Clary waited almost impatiently in line, the boy teasing his friend over who Clary thought was cute or not, and Yu was almost off in her own world as she tapped her toes against the pavement to the music.

Dinner had been a quiet affair, more talk about Eric's decision to rename the band _again_ because of how dumb "Caffeine Crisis" started to sound out loud. The food they'd ordered had been simple meals that wouldn't come back up if they danced too hard, and the amount of sugar in their drinks helped serve to give them all that extra kick needed to jump straight into Pandemonium. The taxi ride over had been even quieter, somehow; shortly before they'd hailed one Simon had brought up the fact that Pandemonium was somewhere Jocelyn actively tried to keep Clary from, and the mixed feelings of going behind the woman's back wound up settling over all three.

Clary wanted to have fun on her own accord, Simon wanted to follow Clary despite the risk, and Yu just wanted to tag along to fill time and forget her week so far. Little things compared to the question of _why_ Jocelyn didn't like Clary going near the club, especially since it wasn't strictly just for adults.

The line shuffled forward, another person going inside after a slight delay from the bouncer. Simon commented that Clary thought another person was cute—how many was that? Five? Yu sidestepped after them, watching as more people came out of the alleys and restaurants nearby to get in line. Some were obvious to pick as faeries, others were harder to pick as anything else. She'd never thought to ask what the tells of vampires and werewolves were, assuming vampires were just sickly pale and had large fangs poking out from their mouths. Now that she was out in the night life, though, she felt almost paranoid.

Clary gave her a quick tug on her arm, and suddenly the trio was right in front of the bouncer and waiting for entry. The man looked them all up and down, unsurprised, before finally nodding and gesturing for them to go through the doors behind him. Simon led the way, holding the door open for both girls, while Clary continued to drag Yu into the club.

The music was deafening inside. The powerful thumps she'd heard outside shook her to the core as she walked into the neon-lit club. She wasn't big on things like this—loud and big and ripe for a headache—but she really just wanted to fill her time. What better way to do that than to avoid contemplative silence?

Clary led her over to a small table near the closest wall, Simon having already claimed it for the trio. There were empty drinks on the table, all smelling fruity and alcoholic; one even had a little umbrella still left in it.

Strobe lights flashed green, blue, purple; the fog machine by the DJ was pumping out mist in thick clouds; countless people danced and shook with the music. Yu could probably enjoy herself tonight, especially if the DJ kept up the good work up in his booth. She knocked on the table to get her friends' attention, barely waiting for them to look at her fully as she yelled to them, "I'm gonna go dance for a bit!"

Simon at the very least waved to her. Clary was a bit distracted by all the sights Pandemonium held, but Yu was sure Simon would fill her in once she came back to reality.

She pushed her way past dancers, the beat infectious enough to leave a skip in her step. Shoulders rolling, head bobbing, a playful dip of the knees. Yu was easily joining the crowd as she began to dance, letting out all the music that flowed through her limbs. Clubbing was never a thing she saw herself doing in her summer vacation. She'd honestly seen herself wandering the streets of an unfamiliar city this summer, not having some world shattering revelation and dancing in a nightclub.

Someone brushed up against her, sending her a charming smile as they breezed past to join someone they knew. Yu couldn't help feeling a rush of energy go through her at how close everyone was. It was like the idea of less space to move made dancing more appealing. She didn't even feel underdressed—(well, technically _over_ dressed)—for such a scene, her old hoodie hardly turning heads as something inappropriate for such a leather-filled, heel-clicking club.

It wasn't hard to spot Clary and Simon moving through the crowd towards the bar. Clary was still entranced by the bright lights, but by now she'd come to her senses enough to follow Simon without falling behind. It make Yu laugh a little to herself.

She continued to dance, losing track of time as the music sped up. She spun in circles, shook her hips, and threw her hands up in the air gleefully. As unexpected as this was, it was leagues better than an unfamiliar city.

It took Clary and Simon some time to hunt her down again and hand her a glass of soda. She followed them through the crowd, sipping at her drink in an attempt to keep from spilling it. Simon was the first to try start a conversation despite the fact that none of them could even hear themselves.

Yu watched as he tried yelling something to the girls, and after his second attempt to repeat himself he seemed to give up. He simply pouted down at his drink and sipped at it through his straw, disappointed and probably annoyed. Clary didn't bother trying to get him to repeat himself, patiently waiting for the song to change into something a tad quieter. "Quieter" would probably take a while, in Yu's opinion.

Once they finished their drinks and gave up waiting for a new song, the trio returned to the dancefloor. This time Yu kept them to the outskirts, giving them just a little more room to move around and take in their surroundings. Neither Clary or Simon seemed inclined to venture further into the crowd anyway, which made it a _lot_ easier for Yu to keep track of them. Clary's focus wasn't on Yu and Simon much anymore, watching the other side of the room like a hawk.

Simon moved closer to Yu, and she could just barely hear him snort. "She was staring at him in line too!" he yelled into her ear. It was a miracle she even heard him, and as she followed Clary's gaze she wondered just who had the redhead so curious.

He was decent looking, but definitely not Yu's type. Lean with brightly dyed blue hair, bit of a baby face as well. He didn't seem to be paying attention to the music or most of the crowd around him, instead almost scanning those who passed him by. She doubted he would even meet Clary's stare with the way he was going.

"Didn't think she went for the type," Yu yelled back to Simon. She watched as the boy seemed to perk up, suddenly moving with purpose through the crowd. Yu tried to track where he was moving towards, curious, but was quick to forget what she was even looking for once she laid eyes on the beauty amidst the crowd.

Now _this_ was Yu's type: Tall and regal, a gorgeous face that was framed by long, silky black hair. The dress the girl wore was just as out of place in the club as the trio's casual clothing, but unlike them the girl still seemed to fit in—like the otherworldly edge it gave her was more than enough to make her both blend in with the crowd and stand out like a star. Yu really hoped she'd run into the girl tonight, get a chance to talk to her and ask her name.

But the hopes were soon dashed when Blue Hair slid to the girl's side, looking at her almost hungrily. The girl returned his stare, teasingly smiling at him as she leaned closer to him. Yu quickly looked away, dismayed that someone else had taken the chance before her.

"You guys having fun?" she asked her friends instead. Clary just let out a barely audible hum, while Simon nodded half-heartedly. The club was less his scene than it was Yu's, but she knew he was putting up a brave face for Clary.

It didn't take long for Clary to finally remember her friends were with her. With a look of absolute panic she latched onto Yu's arm and yelped, "Guys!"

Simon's brows shot up to his hairline. "Are you not having fun?" he asked, looking almost eager to leave.

Clary shook her head fervently. She stared up at Yu, distressed and panicking. "Tell me you saw those guys," she pleaded. She threw her hand back towards Blue Hair and Pretty Girl—only Yu now noticed they were gone. Instead, in their place were two males with small, glimmering objects in their hands. Yu's heart leapt into her throat. Did someone actually sneak a knife into the club?

"I don't see anyone," Simon said. Yu pulled Clary's hand off her arm and pushed the girl closer to Simon.

"I see them." She barely looked back at Clary and Simon, too worried she'd lose sight of the boys if she looked away for just a second. "Get security. I'll see if I can distract them or something."

"Yu—"

She didn't hear the rest of Clary's objection. She was already pushing past faeries and teens dressed in punk gear, apologising under her breath with each couple she broke past. She could see the backs of the boys' heads, but the dancers made it difficult to see anything else. Yu pushed her way through the crowd until she was in the exact spot Blue Hair and Pretty Girl had occupied.

What was her plan once she reached them? Distracting someone was hard, especially if they had a weapon and a target. Yu would probably wind up stabbed before security was found—or worse, someone else would turn up dead in one of the bathrooms before Yu could catch them.

She was starting to remember why she didn't usually consider clubbing in her spare time.

Yu swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed forward once more. The boys were so close now, heading in the direction that Blue Hair and Pretty Girl were going. The impromptu couple slipped into a storage room with no one but Yu and the boys noticing; her heart raced as she realised what was about to mostly likely happen to Pretty Girl.

She almost sprinted forward then, crashing into the blond boy just as they reached the door. His friend startled, hissing a curse as she and the blond fell to the ground. Yu had every intention of saying some cheesy one-liner to let them know she meant business, but it all just froze in her throat when she saw not only the tattoos lining both boys' arms, but also the face of the blonde she'd knocked to the ground.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Yu growled at Jace.

"Nice to see you too," Jace groaned. "Mind getting off me?"

His friend was panicking now, babbling out questions—who was the girl on him, why could she see him, what did Jace do this time, what if Yu's interruption put Isabelle in danger? Yu stared up at him in horror, slowly putting the pieces together. Pretty Girl—Isabelle—was most likely the same as Jace, which meant _she_ wasn't the one in danger tonight.

Jace stood up quickly, grabbing Yu by the arm and dragging her to the door his friend stood by. Yu protested, trying to shake her arm from his grip, but Jace quickly said to her, "It's not exactly underwraps anymore, so I need you to come in with us and stay hidden."

"Jace," his friend gasped, "what are you—"

"I'll explain later. Alec, meet Yu." Jace pushed Yu in front of him, urging her through the door. "Yu, this is Alec."

Alec was just as confused as Yu was at this point. At least she had that in common with this new acquaintance. Jace snuck through the door last, nodding for Alec to venture further into the room. As Alec followed the voices further in the storage room, Jace guided Yu over to one of the shelves in the corner and sat her down behind it.

"It's a horrifically small world," he whispered quickly, "but I need you to sit right here and _not_ come out. No matter what—"

"My friends are already getting security—"

"—and they won't find anything. No matter what you see or hear, just remember that what we're hunting isn't a human. Okay?"

It was an understatement to say that processing this was difficult. The easygoing Jace Wayland she'd met days ago was now super serious and super stressed, and the very thing he'd promised not to tell anyone he knew—that Yu could see him and the world he lived in—was out in the open. She got the feeling this Alec person wouldn't be so willing to keep it all hush, hush. She got the feeling Alec was probably one of the first people Jace had thought of to keep it a secret from.

Yu slowly nodded at him. Jace gave her a half-smile, back to his easygoing self in an instant, before he slinked away after his friend.

The scuffle that broke out was short and quiet. Grunts and punches, the bending of wires and gasps for air. She dared a peek through the shelf, hoping to see what was going on, but could only make out Isabelle's hair and dress as the boys slowly slipped out of sight.

What did this mean for her now? She knew that Jace would have to tell people he knew about her, because damn him and his need to figure out what was "wrong" with her, but where would that leave her? Would she be whisked away to the Institute he told her about? Would she get to see her family again, or still be able to go back to a normal life? Her stomach churned uncomfortably. Clary had spotted the duo first—what if they went after her too? What if they figured out one of Yu's friends could see them too?

This was bad. This was very bad.

The boys began speaking to Blue Hair now, interrogating him. Yu's heart just sank further and further, trying to remind herself, _It isn't human, it isn't human._ For all the times the thought raced through her mind, though, there was always a small doubt thanks to the way Blue Hair whimpered and begged. What if he was human? What if Jace and Alec were torturing some poor kid?

She didn't want to stick around to find out. Yu already knew Jace was capable of killing a hellhound, so what was one mundane to him? If she couldn't tell someone this was happening, or deny that she would be the only one who knew, then she could damn well do her best to get away from it before it got messy.

Yu fell to her hands and knees, inching along the floor with her breath held. Even if Alec and Jace didn't notice her, she had no idea if Isabelle would or not. No mention of Yu had been made yet, and from where she was knelt down she could still see just the back of Isabelle. She reached the end of the shelf and stopped. She poked her head out ever so slightly to see where everyone was, and a flutter of hope came to her chest. All of their attentions were on Blue Hair—and the boy hadn't even seen her yet, too busy avoiding eye contact with Jace—which gave Yu the perfect moment to try and run.

Now or never, she thought. Don't wimp out.

She kept the the shadows as best she could and slowly stood until she was partially crouched, able to sneak along the walls with only the mildest of anxiety. No one had noticed her; she was closer and closer to freedom. Yu dared a glance at the trio just when the door was within arm's reach, and it was the biggest mistake she could make during her escape.

One of the wires along the floor snagged around her foot, tripping her and knocking over a box as it travelled along the floor with her. Yu's mind went into overdrive, four pairs of eyes suddenly on her as they all realised what was going on. Jace was the first to try say something, starting along the lines of, "What did I _say_?"

He didn't get to finish the demand, though; Blue Hair sprang off of the column they'd bound him to, knocking Jace to the ground and catching everyone's attention again. Another golden opportunity, which Yu wasted no time using. She yanked the door open and sprinted out back onto the dancefloor. She ran and ran, knocking over a few dancers as she tried to find Clary and Simon. If she could just regroup with them, she could lie about where the people with knives went. She could say she was too spooked to stay in Pandemonium.

Yu crashed into a group of people with drinks, spilling the glasses all over them and the floor. One of them growled, "Drunk bitch," as she pushed herself back into focus. She apologised and darted off towards the front doors—if Clary and Simon went to get security, they'd have gone for the bouncer out the front, right?

Sure enough, she ran right into the burly man in question. He grabbed her shoulders to hold her steady, Clary and Simon poking out from behind him to see what had happened. As soon as Yu's presence registered with them, they shoved themselves between her and the bouncer.

"Where'd they go?"

"Are you okay?"

She couldn't tell who asked what, but she could at the very least answer them.

"I'm fine," she gasped. She hadn't realised how much she'd been running and panicking until she'd stopped. "I lost them in the crowd, though. You might need to check the bathrooms and the storage room."

The bouncer nodded and thanked her, then told the trio it might be best for them to head home. Yu didn't have any arguments there, even as Clary tried to convince her to stay another half-hour and relax. If Yu stayed, Jace would definitely find her. And who knew what would happen then?

It wasn't until they hailed a taxi after an excruciating fifteen minutes that Yu began to relax again, comforted by the knowledge that none of them had seen her leave in the vehicle. They wouldn't know Clary saw them too, and Simon would get what he wanted tonight—to get away from the club while still staying by Clary's side.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

It was almost easy to forget what happened last night. With Jocelyn home that morning and Clary successfully grounded by the woman, no talk of Pandemonium occurred. As far as Jocelyn knew, neither girl went to the club last night—and as far as Yu was concerned, they never would again.

It made it a lot easier to focus on talking to her parents instead. With Clary on lockdown and Jocelyn's presence keeping them quiet, Yu could forget she ever saw Jace and his friends.

She'd been lucky to catch her parents today. Izumo had a very noticeable sunburn over her cheeks, while Erkan appeared to have forgotten to shave over the past few days. Yu figured they'd had a big day and that they'd need to leave soon for Nine and Dede's house, which meant it'd probably be a short call.

A call was a call, though. After the week Yu'd had, she was glad to hear from her parents again.

" _Have you been having fun?_ " Izumo asked. Despite the lagging video quality of the call, Yu could still see the big smile on her mother's face as she sat in the study with Erkan.

Yu nodded. "Lots," she said. "Elmo's been good, too."

Erkan leaned closer to the camera, a stern expression on his face. " _Is my little Elmo being spoiled enough?_ "

"Of course not," she scoffed. Horror crossed Erkan's features. It soon vanished as he let out a quiet chuckle.

" _We have so many photos to show you when we get back,_ " Izumo continued. " _Little Ayla is so beautiful. You'd love her!_ "

"I think Naz would get upset if I took her sister's attention," Yu laughed. There was also the whole issue of Yu panicking whenever someone put a baby in her hands, but she'd rather not rain on her mother's parade today. "Is Pembe doing okay?"

" _Strong as ever_." Erkan rubbed his arm almost grimly. Yu could only imagine what her aunt had done to warrant a reaction like that from the big man. " _She was hoping you'd be coming, but she understood why you couldn't come_."

"Sorry about that…"

" _Don't be sorry, honey. You can visit next time_ — _Nine's already saved a seat specially for you at the table!_ "

The phone began to ring on the other side of the house. Clary was quick to announce that she would handle it, which left Yu breathing out a sigh of relief. She wanted just a few more seconds with her parents.

"I hope I can go with you guys next time," Yu said. She rubbed the back of her neck, ashamed of her refusal to leave solid ground.. "We'll work on the flying thing as soon as you come back."

" _Absolutely!_ " Erkan nodded gleefully at the idea. He looked as though he was about to add onto the suggestion, probably already coming up with schemes to combat Yu's phobia, but a shout from Clary all the way across the apartment was enough to drag Yu's attention away from her parents.

She hurriedly said goodbye to them, curious as to why Clary would be yelling out to Simon when he wasn't even there, and shut the laptop clumsily. Part of her expected to see a surprise visit from Simon when she left the bedroom, while another part of her decided right then and there that Clary was still just on the phone—probably to Simon. Yu peeked around the door, and sure enough Clary was right across the living room and on her own.

Clary was leaning against the wall with the apartment's phone propped under her ear. She glanced once at Yu, mouthing Simon's name to her, and Yu gave her a thumbs up as she moved for the kitchen. From the sounds of the phone call, Clary was telling Simon about the aftermath of their arrival home; Clary seemed to skirt over the fact that she'd been grounded, which Yu snorted at as she pulled a box of juice from the fridge.

Her conversation with Simon didn't last for long, Clary hanging up with a smirk at what was probably Simon reacting badly to her sass. The two always loved to riff off each other—like siblings, Yu thought. As soon as the phone was out of her hand, though, Clary's face fell.

"Think Mom would let me leave for band practice?" she asked. Yu let out a short hiss. She shook her head and sipped at her juice. "No hope?"

"A little. But not enough to convince Jocelyn Fray to let you leave," Yu decided. "We might have to give it a miss today. Could be her Mom Senses tingling."

Clary rolled her eyes. She draped herself over the couch lazily, groaning. "Mom's are defective," she argued. "They tingle twenty-four-seven and nothing ever happens."

"Maybe that's what she wants you to think." Yu crept over to the couch, peeking over the edge with a sly grin. "Maybe she's leading a double life of fighting maternal crimes, being the vigilante mom we all need yet do not deserve."

Clary swatted her in the face with a cushion. "That's dumb, and you're dumb for suggesting it."

The door clicked open behind her. Yu whirled on her heel to greet Jocelyn, but stopped short when she spotted someone else come through instead. She hasn't seen Luke since the welcome home party the Frays had held for her, but he looks just the same as the last time they'd been in the same room.

Flat cardboard boxes were tucked under his arms, waiting for somewhere to be set down in the brownstone. Yu lifted her drink in acknowledgement to the man, and he nodded silently back to her. Clary was the one who tried to fill the silence, the most surprised at Luke's presence in the apartment.

Once he set down the boxes in the kitchen, Clary said, "Hey Un— Uh, Luke."

At least she was getting better with her recoveries. Yu sipped at her juice some more as Luke groaned and stretched in the doorway. "Your mother's out parking the truck," he told Clary, already anticipating the question from the redhead. "Why doesn't the elevator work here?"

Before Clary could recite her usual spiel about it having _character_ , Yu snorted, "Because the landlord's cheap."

He chuckled, nodding in agreement.

"What's with the boxes?" Clary asked. Luke looked down at them and shrugged.

"Your mother said she wants to pack away from things. Stuff lying about that she has no use for," he explained. He turned on his heel to wander further into the kitchen. He disappeared as he ducked down to reach into the cupboard under the sink, the obvious sounds of a search coming from within. "Here it is!" he muttered to himself, and when he stood back up he added out loud, "You have anything you want stored away?"

Clary shook her head. She rolled off of the couch and peeked over the bench at his hands, curious as to what he'd found. She really didn't need to do it, as Luke waltzed out of the kitchen with the orange tape dispenser held firmly in his hand.

"Did she look… angry?" Clary added.

He shrugged again. Luke didn't offer much in the way of words on that particular subject, leaving Clary to look extra worried once the footsteps that undoubtedly belonged to Jocelyn echoed outside the front door. Yet when the very woman Clary was worried about facing walked through that door, she looked anything but angry. In fact, Yu would go so far as to say that Jocelyn looked rather relieved at the sight of the boxes.

Jocelyn picked one up and popped it open with a smile. She began fastening the lid as she said a hello to the two girls. Yu watched her carefully, as did Clary, and soon it became apparent that not everything was sunshine and rainbows for Jocelyn—not with those dark bags under her eyes or the way her eyes were glossed over with sleep that never got a chance to take over. Clary was the most cautious Yu had even seen her when she crept towards her mother.

"What's with the boxes?" she asked hesitantly. Jocelyn glanced at her once, almost reluctant to say anything, and moved on to the next box. Maybe Jocelyn was still upset with Clary's outing last night? Or was it something else that was bothering her? Clary tired again, "Are you still angry with me?"

Jocelyn let out a heavy sigh. She shook her head and popped open the second box, folding its edges neatly together. "I'm not angry, Clary," she said softly. "I've just had a lot on my mind since last night."

Luke, helpful as ever, picked up a box and cleared his throat expectantly at the woman. He moved over to Yu's side, beckoning for her to follow. Yu quietly did so, stopping by the far wall so the two Frays could have whatever talk was meant to happen just now. From this distance it was easy to see the similarities in how Jocelyn and Clary handled the situation. Both kept their heads and shoulders level, but their brows furrowed into almost identical expressions that betrayed their anxiety over the topic.

When the news of Clary going to Luke's farmhouse for the rest of the summer came to light, all hell broke loose. Yu could only watch in horror as she begged and pleaded with her mother to stay at the brownstone instead, bringing up her art classes and the party Simon had wanted to hold once school drew closer. As soon as Jocelyn dismissed the classes and pushed Clary into further panic, Yu realised this was going to be an uphill battle for the teen.

Clary begged Luke to help convince Jocelyn to let her stay in Brooklyn, but Luke just shook his head and told her to listen to her mother. Clary looked hopeless then, her gaze falling to Yu—her last resort. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot Yu could do but lessen the blow this dealt to Clary's summer plans.

"Will I be coming as well?" Yu asked Jocelyn. Before Clary could even think to use Yu as a means to stay home, Jocelyn coughed nervously.

"Yes, until your parents come back," she said. "Luke will drive you home the night before and keep an eye on you. Does that sound alright?"

Both Luke and Yu looked at each other in surprise. Clearly this was the first time he was hearing the news as well. "Sure," Yu said slowly. "Do you have a spare bedroom?"

"Two," Luke said. "Why?"

Yu looked to Clary then, an apologetic smile on her face. "I can't do much to help with the art classes, but we can see if Simon can stay over and have a small get together with the three of us. I'll bunk on the floor or something while you two take the bed."

Clary's face fell, her attitude deflating with it. "But…"

"Maybe it'll help you too. You said you were stuck in a rut with what to draw. Maybe the farmhouse is what you need."

It was three against one. Even Clary seemed to recognise this once Yu's words sank in. She looked up at her mother with an almost helpless expression and backed down from her argument. "I'll go get some things," she said quietly. Clary barely looked at Yu or Luke as she disappeared into her room, leaving the door half-open behind her.

The silence that followed didn't last for long. Jocelyn immediately turned her attention to Luke, asking him politely, "Can you drop Yu to her house and come back? We'll finish packing by the time she walks back."

Well, it was a good way to save time on walking back and forth as well. And Luke probably had to put the boxes back in the truck once they were packed and waiting by the door. Yu nodded and looked up at Luke, who was already setting down the tape dispenser and nodding for her to follow.

Just as Luke and Yu were out the door, she remembered the canine responsibility she still had. "Can we bring Elmo with us?" she asked quickly. Luke gave her a thumbs up and a smile. "He'll probably love all the space and attention."

"Knowing my luck," Luke told her, "he'll just follow me everywhere."

She laughed at the mental image—Luke, disgruntled and exhausted, being chased at the heels by a very excitable border collie at every waking moment. It'd be just like how he was at home, hanging on Erkan's every action with his tongue wagging about.

The drive to her house took all of five minutes, and Yu waved goodbye to Luke with a grin as he backed out of her driveway. The truck disappeared around the corner, and Yu wasted no time retreating into her house and calling for Elmo.

The border collie followed her into her room with a needy whine. Elmo watched as she piled clothes into a duffel bag, soon followed by DVDs and books to read. Almost as an afterthought, Yu plucked the box that held her poloroid camera out of her closet and set it down next to her bag.

"Elmo!" she called again, trying to lead the dog towards the back door. Erkan always hung up Elmo's leash by the sliding door, hoping to contain Elmo within their backyard before he sprinted out the front door. Elmo groaned and basically rolled onto his back as Yu tried to attach the leash to his collar; after an almost tiring few minutes of struggling, he was ready for a walk to the brownstone.

"We're going to Luke's for a while," she cooed at him. Elmo whined out a half-bark, excited by the mention of Luke. Sometimes she swore he understood English. He followed her eagerly back to her room, waiting impatiently for her to shoulder her bag and grab her box. With only one hand free to hold Elmo's leash, Yu was ready to go back to the Frays' apartment.

Elmo practically pulled her out of the house, barely giving her time to shut the door behind her. He was just as eager to get to the brownstone as she was now, and all Yu could do was laugh as she led him along the sidewalk. He really must have been dying to go outside since the last trip. She did her best to take the shortest route, but every path took about the same amount of time to get to the Fray apartment. If she'd still had her bike and a front basket for the handlebars, maybe she would've been able to make do and give Elmo a proper run on the way.

Yu sighed as she turned the corner, shaking her head. Oh well. She'd probably still have to wait until her parents came back home to get a new one, or pray for a job that paid well enough for part-timers.

After she passed the first house she became aware of the footsteps behind her, jogging to keep up with her pace and catch up entirely. Yu listened for a second, hesitating to look over her shoulder with Elmo so eager to bolt down the street. She hoped whoever it was would just pass her by instead of staying behind her—people like that always made her feel like such a slowpoke whenever she was walking with Elmo. Neither scenario seemed to come true, though; instead she heard the footsteps slow until they were close behind her, a throat being cleared as loudly as possible to get her attention.

Yu groaned and came to a stop, holding tight to Elmo's leash as he began to tug at it insistently. She turned to face the stranger, ready to ask what they wanted, but stopped short once she recognised that stupidly pretty face and that stupidly smug grin.

" _No_ ," Yu hissed angrily. Jace nodded, brows raised and eyes wide.

" _Yes_ ," he declared. He glanced down at Elmo once and added, "Nice dog."

"What do you want?"

He put his hands up in an almost surrendering gesture, his posture relaxing almost immediately as he moved past her to pet Elmo.

"You ran off last night," he said. "I got the lecture of a lifetime when I got back."

"Boo-hoo." Yu put herself between Elmo and Jace, effectively dog-blocking the teen. "I had friends with me—what was I supposed to do?"

He shrugged. "Not run?" Before Yu could even bother to scoff at him, he pointed vaguely at the bag and box. "What's all this?"

Yu almost decided against telling him, but a big part of her wanted to see him try argue his way into making her stay in Brooklyn. "I'm leaving for a while," she said proudly. "My friend and her mother are going on a vacation, and _I_ am to follow until my parents come home."

Jace barely even looked disappointed by the fact. If anything, he just looked contemplative as he nodded and stroked his chin. "Alright. I'll walk you there."

"You're _not_ walking me to my friend's house. What if you harass her?"

"I'm not some pixie who enjoys pranks, Ayumu." Jace's brow quirked. Had she annoyed him? Yu's heart jumped for joy—she was getting to him! Maybe he'd leave her alone if she pushed his buttons some more. "Consider it a courtesy from your friendly neighbourhood Shadowhunter."

She scowled. As soon as she began to walk again, Elmo sprinted forward and yanked her forward. Yu's toes hooked around her ankle, the ground suddenly disappearing under one foot as she fell forward. The leash was still wrapped tightly around her wrist as she crashed to the ground, but thankfully Elmo didn't have enough strength to drag Yu along the pavement.

Jace stood right in front of her, a soft cackling coming from him as she groaned as loudly as possible. Yu pushed herself back to a sitting position and rubbed her face, praying her nose wasn't broken. As soon as she confirmed that everything was still intact, she glared up at the blonde.

"Carry my camera," she growled. "The _minute_ we enter her street, you're gone."

He picked up the box without even a single complaint. "If it helps, she won't even see me in the first place." Jake pointed knowingly to his shoulder—Yu wasn't sure what was supposed to be there underneath his shirt, but she assumed it was something that made mundanes unaware of his existence.

She bit her tongue as the temptation to tell him that he wasn't as invisible as he thought rose in her chest. She stood back up and held Elmo's leash even tighter than before, and soon enough she was leading Jace in the direction of the brownstone.

It didn't take him long to try start up another conversation, once again complaining about the trouble he got into last night. She had to give him props for lasting until the next block, at least. The taller boy that had been with him—Alec, as Jace called him—had been in a panic over a mundane seeing them, which had led to Isabelle—apparently Alec's sister—going "full Maryse" on Jace.

(She pretended to know what he meant by that. It was probably a TV or book reference she'd have to look into while she was at Luke's.)

And then he turned his attention to her, suddenly interested in why she was staying with a friend.

"Parents are on vacation," she said simply.

"And you didn't go with them?" He raised a brow at her.

Yu couldn't help the annoyance that crept into her tone. " _No_. I don't like flying—is something wrong with that?"

Jace just smirked and let out a dubious sound, leaving the answer to himself. It only irked her more.

"Don't you have friends to bother?" she went on. Jace only nodded his head side to side, a half-hearted shrug accompanying it.

"I'm much more content with bothering you until the last minute," he decided.

They rounded another corner, the silence settling once again. Yu wished something would pull Jace's attention away from the whole issue—or, better yet, that Luke would decide walking was taking too long. She'd never been a fan of the truck, but if she saw it right now she'd consider it her saviour.

Instead of a truck, though, opportunity presented itself in a loud, shrill ring from her phone. Yu tightened her hold on Elmo's leash and dug around in the pocket of her jeans, pulling out the flip phone with a grunt. Simon's name flashed on the screen, a welcome distraction from the annoyance at her heels.

"Howdy, stranger," she greeted. Jace scrunched his face up at her, displeased by the exaggerated southern accent she donned.

" _Is something going on?_ " Simon sounded panicked. " _Clary just called saying she was going away for a while and then just hung up. Is she alright? What's happening?_ "

"Chill out," Yu sighed. "Her mom wanted some time away from Brooklyn. I managed to negotiate a visit from you and a party, so you're welcome."

" _The party is the last thing on my mind right now. I hate to sound like a know-it-all, but Clary never backs down from an argument over the course of an hour!_ "

"It was three against one." She nodded for Jace to keep walking, but the blond just stayed put and continued to listen to her conversation. "It's only for the rest of the summer. Maybe a week or so less? Plus, the stress from last night probably convinced her she needed a break too."

Jace leaned closer, _very_ interested in what Yu had just said. She cursed internally, glaring at him to back off and puffing out her chest as menacingly as possible. There went her plan of not saying Clary saw something last night as well.

" _Well… Yeah, I guess she was pretty wound up about it still…_ " Simon heaved out a sigh. " _Would I have time to visit and say goodbye at least?_ "

"Negative." Yu peeked up at the street sign closest to her. They were literally around the corner from the brownstone. "We're heading off as soon as I get back, and that's less time than you have to get here."

" _Rats._ "

"Amen to that. I'll make sure she calls you so you both stay sane." Simon thanked her, and then quickly wished her a safe trip. Yu thanked him back, and hung up with a deep sigh. "What's with the look?"

Jace didn't waste time getting to the point. "What did this friend of yours see last night?"

She loosened her hold on Elmo, letting him drag her along the pavement again. She didn't bother looking back at Jace as she said, "Not that it matters, but she's the reason I tackled you. She thought you were going to attack someone she saw you following."

"The Eidolon?"

"Sure. Whatever." When Jace was remarkably quiet for the seconds that followed, Yu's stomach began to lurch. Jace being quiet wasn't a good sign, if the past week was any indicator. " _Don't_ say it."

"Change of plans," he said, ignoring her. Yu growled under her breath. "Hodge was willing to wait for you to come to the Institute, given you've provided enough for us to investigate without you for a while, but your friend? Yu, two mundanes with the Sight is a lot more uncommon than you think."

"Maybe you just don't know a lot of mundanes," she argued. As much as she hated to admit it, there was a bite to her tone. Yu just really didn't want to drag Clary into this, especially after the stress of leaving Brooklyn for the rest of the summer.

Jace shrugged. The duo turned the corner—Park Slope, thank goodness—as he went on, "You and your friend need to come to the Institute. _Today_."

"Why?" She stopped walking, instead turning on her heel to face him and get right in his personal space with a snarl. "Why is it so important that we go _today_?"

He stared back at her. The way his eyes shifted back and forth over her face, contemplating her question, made it seem almost like he wanted to know that answer as well. Was he just acting on a whim over this? If he was, Yu was going to be sure to leave him with a nice bruise as a farewell gift. Jace inhaled deeply through his nose, finally settling on an answer.

"Call it a hunch."

Her snarl faltered at his words. Surefire Jace, who was always so confident with his deductions until they were proven wrong, was just relying on a _hunch_. He never said he'd had a hunch about why Yu was so strong or why she saw the hellhound. He never said he'd had a hunch about her family being anything but mundane. He always said he _knew_ , and he always had reasons why.

So why the hunch this time?

Yu sighed, her face falling as she took a step back. Maybe putting off all this Shadowhunter visiting would bite her in the behind if she kept it up. Maybe it was time to face the music. She'd just have to tell Jocelyn to wait a day, take Clary with her, and then pray everything would resolve itself within the day.

She turned back to Elmo—the border collie was looking up at her impatiently—and sighed again. "Fine. Just give me a few minutes to get her."

Jace nodded, looking surprisingly understanding. He didn't offer her much more than a genuine, "Thank you," as he followed her to the gate of the brownstone.

Luke's truck wasn't in the drive. Yu stared at the empty space with a frown—he would've been back by now, wouldn't he? She clicked open the gate and let Elmo go in before her, only to bump into the dog as she and Jace followed.

Elmo's fur was raised and his ears were bent back. He even let his leash go slack as Yu moved to see what was wrong, calling out to him softly. The border collie almost didn't seem to hear her. Instead, Elmo just crouched down low and began to growl at the front door.

"Moo?" Yu glanced between him and the door. "What's wrong, boy?"

As she knelt down beside her dog, hoping to get through to him, Jace set down her camera box and hastily reached for his back pocket. He was muttering under his breath, no longer looking the calm and collected smartass he usually presented himself as. As he was pulling a small box, no larger than her phone, from his back pocket, she heard him growl, "If that's what I think it is, so help me…"

A crash sounded from above, right from the window connected to Jocelyn's bedroom. Yu shrieked and pulled Elmo away as Jace leapt back outside the gate. Glass crashed to the ground alongside a few large clumps of grey flesh, exploding into flames that left nothing behind. From within the bedroom itself, a screech—nothing like anything Yu had ever heard before—rang out.

Demon. A demon was in the brownstone. It had to be.

Yu hastily dropped Elmo's leash and her bag, sprinting through the front door as Jace called out to her to stop. Like hell she would stop, not when a demon was possibly attacking her friend. She raced up the stairs as her heart beat wildly in her chest. As quickly as the commotion upstairs had started, all sounds from the apartment had stopped.

So when Yu flung open the front door, it was an immense relief that she didn't immediately happen upon Clary or Jocelyn. It had to mean they were okay, right? It had to mean that they were safe. But even with that weak attempt at reassurance, Yu still felt uneasy as she took a step inside.


	6. Chapter 5

**Sorry for how late this is! Hope you all enjoy the read!**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

"Clary?" She crept into the apartment, her hands shaking at her sides. "Jocelyn? Luke?"

Scuttling. Like multiple sticks being moved up and down the floorboards. Yu's stomach practically dropped onto the floor.

Okay. No Luke or Jocelyn or Clary. Just something else.

She wasn't sure how, but in the mere hour it took to get her things and come back to the apartment everything was destroyed. Paintings slashed, cushions torn open and left for unwitting witnesses. Lamps were turned on, as were all of the lights along the ceiling, and Yu almost felt like she was being blinded as the sound of electricity buzzed through the air. The scuttling had disappeared somewhere further into the apartment.

Jocelyn's bedroom was right to her left, just beyond the slashed scenery of Central Park. Yu held her breath as she snuck into the room, the silence almost suffocating.

The bedroom was in a worse state than the living room was. The door wasn't just open, but torn clean off of its hinges and splintered violently; Jocelyn's bedframe had split at the middle, concaving into the floor with goose feathers scattered around the duvet. Even her jewellery and clothing had been torn out from her drawers, scattered about like someone had gone through her things in search of something of value.

The window the demon had fallen through was covered in rotting goo and a foul odour. Yu gagged and threw her hand over her nose and mouth, unaware of what she was about to step on as she ventured further into the bedroom. Her foot rolled forwards as it landed on something cylindrical, but thankfully Yu didn't topple to the floor like she expected to. The small cylinder rolled towards the window, the paper wrapped around it slowly unraveling like a scroll.

Was this Jocelyn's, she thought? Did whoever come in here leave it behind? Yu held her breath as she moved closer to the window in order to pick it up. One hand grasped the cylinder loosely, the light weight of it feeling almost natural in her palm. The other hand scooped up the paper and held it open awkwardly with her fingers.

Yu blinked down at the contents, confused and intrigued. One end of the paper had a drawing similar to the tattoos on Jace's arms, while the other end had a name. Yu tried to read it over in her head, hoping to find a proper pronunciation, but the vowels just weren't sinking in.

"Rid…" she muttered, squinting at the paper. "Ridwan?"

A sharp glow came from the cylinder in her hand. Yu flinched, dropping it as she jumped in surprise, and watched as a long, sharpened blade extended from the cylinder's base. Once the glow dulled to a dim light, she could finally see the magnificent sword at her feet.

That was definitely unexpected.

"I knew it!"

Yu jumped again, this time dropping the paper in her hand. It fell to the floor as she whirled on her feet, ready to give Jace a sneer as he crept silently into the room. The blond merely strode past her and bent down to pick up the sword, grinning lopsidedly at the sight of it.

"This is a seraph blade," he whispered. "Only Shadowhunters can use them—activate them. You invoke its name and the blade manifests."

"So its _name_ ," Yu muttered, still struggling to process the information, "is Ridwan?"

Jace nodded. He looked over to her with wide, excited eyes. "I knew there was angel blood in there somewhere," he said, pointing to her lazily with the blade.

As exciting at such a thing would be to hear—or, in Yu's case, dreadful—there was still the mystery of _how_ the seraph blade got in Jocelyn's room. Did someone leave it there? Did they drop it? Was it what killed the demon that got thrown outside? _Who the hell did it belong to?_

She didn't acknowledge Jace's statement, instead moving further through Jocelyn's room. She started for the woman's bedside table, where a broken picture of herself and a smaller, younger Clary were posed in front of the Statue of Liberty. Yu picked it up and furrowed her brows. Where were they? If Luke's truck was gone, where did the trio disappear to?

Yu pulled her phone from her pocket while Jace began to sift through the closet on the other side of the room. He seemed to have found something of interest, but until Yu made absolutely certain that they were okay she wasn't going to abandon her search for the Frays and Luke. She scrolled through her address book for Jocelyn's number. It rang once, twice, before it suddenly stopped—as though Jocelyn had hit the decline button for the call.

"The hell?" Yu growled. Why would she do that? Jace pulled a piece of the closet out with a grunt, and then he let out a low whistle.

"This is a surprise," he said.

"What is?" She glanced over her shoulder at him, peeking into the closet as he reached inside again. When his hand came back out, another cylinder was in it—just like "Ridwan" looked like before Yu manifested the blade. "You're _joking_."

"Who did you say your friend was?" Jace unravelled the scroll around the blade, finding the name Haniel scribbled on it.

Yu knelt beside him and compared the papers both blades had come with. "I didn't."

"Whoever she is," Jace told Yu, "she's definitely anything but mundane."

Without thinking, Yu blurted out, "This is her mom's room."

Jace let out a thoughtful hum. "Unless she was adopted, your friend would be the same," he pointed out. "Shadowhunter blood is dominant."

Now that was a phrase that chilled her to the core. Dominant? As in, no matter what was mixed with it won't overpower it? What did that mean for Yu, who had Clary's blood pumped into her months ago? Her mind whirled as she felt the colour drain from her face. Jace caught the expression, suddenly interested in the reaction Yu had shown, but he didn't get a chance to say anything.

A thump had sounded out through the apartment. Like something had been knocked over and landed flat on the floor. Yu's stomach dropped lower than the floorboards this time—at least three feet underground, with how heavy she felt. She looked to Jace with distaste, already anticipating the fight that was about to go down.

Quick as ever, Jace jumped to his feet and ran to the door. He called out the name of the other seraph blade, brilliant light filling the room as the dagger manifested. A screech sounded out through the apartment. Ever so faintly, Yu swore she heard an almost otherworldly voice complain, " _Valentine said there were no others!_ "

She scrambled for Ridwan, uncertain of what she would even do with it. If what Jace had said was true—and if what had happened when she'd called its name really _happened_ —then Yu wasn't completely helpless if something happened. She just regretted having never used something similar to it in the past. Baseball was never a thing she enjoyed, and she was never trusted with the larger knives in the Burakgazi house thanks to her bad habit of cutting up her fingers by accident.

The creature screeched in agony, and then a body fell to the floor with a frantic, " _Sh-it_!"

She looked up to see Jace toppled over on the floor, lying in a pile of green goo. The way he flicked his arm and splattered it over the wall—Yu couldn't help comparing it to the drool from _Alien_. She scrunched up her face, disgusted, just as another figure entered her sight and began to frantically advance on her.

It was vastly different from the hellhound and the Eidolon. She supposed all demons weren't going to look exactly the same, but if they all looked as disgusting and freaky as this one then she figured she wouldn't have trouble picking one out in a crowd. It probably reached her knees in full height, but its large scorpion legs didn't keep that fact at the forefront of her mind. Neither did the cluster of eyes focused on her, or the serrated mouth screeching, " _Feast!_ "

Jace was still struggling to get to his feet, slipping on the goo along the floor like a newborn deer trying to find its bearings. If she weren't about to have a demon take a bite out of her, she'd laugh.

"What do I do?" she cried as she held Ridwan between two shaking hands.

"Hold on!" Jace called back. "Swipe at its eyes—it can't sting you!"

The demon waved about its stumped tail, black blood dripping from it and burning the floorboards. Yu gagged at the sight of it. Every piece of it was covered in something slimy, its long tongue darting in and out of its mouth almost hungrily. Yu held her breath and sent a silent prayer up to anyone listening. She lifted the blade, making the demon rear its legs back in defense, and swung down as hard as she could. It jumped back, out of the path of danger and out of Jocelyn's room entirely.

Yu's heart sank. Right in front of her and injured, and she'd missed it. Even with a long seraph blade sword, _she'd missed it_. She really hoped Jace was ready to lend a hand any second now.

Thankfully he was. The demon didn't even notice him sliding along the floor with Haniel, nor did it anticipate the dagger going straight into its back and being dragged along its spine like it was being gutted on the wrong side. It shrieked and writhed, and then like a spider assaulted with spray it curled in on itself and flopped onto its back.

Jace flicked his arms outwards again, ridding himself of more of the goo. "Ravener," he huffed. He looked over at Yu, twirling his dagger almost absentmindedly. "Those aren't demons that attack people randomly. Someone sent it here."

Yu dropped the seraph blade and sank to the floor once again. She really hoped this was the last surprise that would be sprung on her today. It was barely even lunchtime.

"It—" She swallowed the lump in her throat that threatened to suffocate her. "It said a 'Valentine' didn't say we'd be here." At the mention of the name, Jace stiffened. He glared down at the Ravener as Yu added, "Who's Valentine?"

"A very bad person," Jace offered. "The Eidolon we caught said the same thing, but I thought it was just messing with us."

"Was it?"

He pursed his lips, an uncharacteristic look of uncertainty on his face. At least Yu knew he was human under all that sarcasm and arrogance. "I can't say for sure," he muttered. "All I know is that this thing was after your friend—or her mother, whichever. We need to find them."

No arguments on her end. Yu nodded and reached for Jocelyn's bed, pulling herself back to her feet as best she could. Jace wandered through the apartment some more, telling her he wanted to make sure nothing else was in the brownstone. Yu was fine with that. As long as he killed anything else dangerous in there, she was _perfectly_ fine with him doing his own thing. Once she finally stood safely again, Yu made a beeline for Jocelyn's bedside table and snatched the photo of the two redheads. It wasn't a recent photo of Clary, but she looked so much like her mother now that it'd be easy to find them both with just this. She popped open the back of the frame and pulled the photo out, then folded it in half and tucked it in the pocket of her jeans.

Jace confirmed there was nothing left in the apartment, eliciting a relieved sigh from Yu. He was back to his old self then, teasing her about this not being the first demon she'd faced. Yu glared at him as she stalked past to get to Clary's room; she wouldn't deign him with a response at a time like this.

She grabbed a few more of her things, packing them into a second bag for Jace to carry, and then searched around for Clary's sketchbook. It was hidden safely under the bed, right next to Yu's laptop; with any luck, that photo from St. Francis Xavier's would still be tucked between the pages. Clary had to have been drawing her own class, right? Maybe that would be useful alongside the Lady Liberty picture?

Sure enough, it was still loosely in between the pages of the sketch book. Yu let out a relieved breath as she tucked it under her arm and hurried out of the room. Jace was waiting for her by the couch, still on high alert despite knowing the danger had passed. He still had Heniel in one hand, and the now dulled Ridwan was in his other. She almost walked right over to his side, but a thought struck her midway.

She hadn't tried calling Clary yet.

Yu pulled her phone out of her pocket again as best she could, and for once thanked Clary's insistence of putting her on speed dial after the accident. Yu put the phone on speaker as it rang out, holding it between herself and Jace. The blond leaned forward, interested in her plan, but was quick to jump in surprise when a shrill beeping rang out through the apartment.

Yu's heart sank. She watched in dismay as Jace circled the couch and crouched onto the ground, and then finally she hung up and let her arm go limp when she saw him pull Clary's cracked phone out from under the couch.

That wasn't good.

She hadn't even realised that the sight of the phone had sent her into a panic until Jace was suddenly in front of her again. Her heart was hammering in her chest, the scenarios of what just happened in this apartment playing on a loop in her mind. Even as Jace got closer, Yu's breaths were hard to fully take in. He was right in her face, forcing her to focus on him as a burning sensation hit her neck. At first Yu flinched, but it didn't take long for the burning to become almost comforting. She tried to recreate what he was drawing in her mind, but the loops and lines threw her off every time.

Yu's hand practically flew up and smacked her neck once Jace pulled back. He stared at her with one brow raised, seemingly waiting for her breathing to steady. She wasn't sure how, but the panic was almost fading. Like she wasn't as focused on the negative anymore, like she _couldn't_ focus on her panic. Her heart steadied and her breathing came easier, until finally her hand dropped from her neck and she furrowed her eyes at Jace. All the fear for Clary and Jocelyn felt… different now. Yu was more concerned with making a plan to find them rather than stand in the apartment and panic. She wanted to turn her concern into something proactive.

She sneered at Jace. This had to be his doing. He just leaned his head forward, almost daring her to say something; instead, Yu bolted for the bathroom and slammed open the door.

"Oh," she yelled upon seeing the tattoo on her jugular. " _My. GOD!_ "

"You're welcome." Jace was already leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Yu whirled back towards him, pointing at him angrily. Every threat she ever knew was right on the tip of her tongue, her glare scathing, but she just couldn't settle for one.

Without thinking, she yelled, "Shut the hell your mouth!" and pushed past him.

Screw this supernatural bull, she decided as she stormed out of the apartment. Even with all the demons and the werewolves and whatever else, Yu was _not_ dealing with it anymore. She was still going to look for Clary and Jocelyn—but she'd be damned if she didn't let the cops take it from here. Jace was following closely at her heels, annoyingly silent even as Yu tried to slam the front door behind her. He simply caught it— _stupid, stupid, stupid_ —and walked down the stairs after her.

Elmo was waiting dutifully by the gate, his lead tied loosely around a picket. He barked happily when Yu approached him.

"Where are you going?" Jace finally asked. It was so lazily spoken, like he didn't really care to know the answer. It made Yu's blood boil. Why ask if he didn't want to know?

"I'm taking my dog," she growled, pulling Elmo's lead from the gate, "and I'm going home to call the cops."

"Cops can't do anything."

"You don't know that!" She stamped her foot on the ground childishly, refusing to look back at him as she picked up her duffel bag. "You keep shooting down my suggestions and ideas because you think normal people aren't as good at the supernatural stuff! You don't even know what Goddamn _MySpace_ is!"

When she turned back around to glare at him, Elmo dutifully by her side, he was sneering down his nose at her. So he didn't like it when she argued with him over what Shadowhunters _didn't_ know. At least that was another button she could press if he continued to bother her.

"What will you tell them?" he said slowly. Yu flinched at the question. She hadn't thought that far ahead with her plan or her rebellion. "They'll send you to a hospital for a mental evaluation if you tell the truth. Worse yet, you'll become a suspect if you lie and get them suspicious. _Cops can't do anything_."

"Then what other option do I have?" Yu threw her hands up, feeling helpless all over again. Like the panic, it soon morphed into determination—a need to find a way out of her rut.

Jace hopped down the front step and moved over to Yu's side. He bent down to pick up her camera box again, and when he stood back up he had a dazzling smirk on his face. Both smug and reassuring, to the point where Yu couldn't tell which was the true meaning behind his suggestion.

"Come to the Institute. We have runes that can help, and if those don't work then we can track down a warlock or ask other Institutes for help." He nodded down to Elmo then. "The dog is more than welcome to come as well."

She stared at him. She really wanted to suddenly come up with another idea, to avoid seeing the people who'd demanded Jace bring her to them. No matter how hard she raked her mind, though, nothing would jump out at her. This really was her only other option.

"Fine," she sighed in defeat. "Just let me stop at the post office on the way. I need to write a letter."


	7. Chapter 6

**Whoa, been a while! Sorry for the long wait on this, it was hard to continue on when I started the chapter and I only just recently got out of the rut with the pacing for it.**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

"Welcome to the Institute."

Yu frowned up at the giant building, pausing even as Jace walked over to the giant doors that were at the front. She could've sworn a dilapidated church was in this very spot a month ago, no one going in or out at all. More than that, her heart sank at the idea of how many people would be inside once she walked through those doors. How many windows did she count just at the front? Twenty? Thirty? Too many, she decided.

Elmo tugged at his leash with a whine, desperately wanting to follow. She contemplated just letting him run after Jace and get himself lost in the Institute, but decided against it as she swallowed her fear and made her way over to the front doors. A plaque with _New York Institute_ etched into it caught her eye as she passed the threshold.

"Nervous?" Jace teased. Yu gave him a sideways glance as she observed the pews in this front room. It looked so well kept, like someone ran through the floor with a mop twice over to keep it squeaky clean. The small lights lining the rows cast a soft blue light through the room, a warmth surrounding them and combating the outdoors' cold.

"'Nervous' is a neat, family-friendly way of putting it," Yu muttered. "How many people live here, again?"

Jace made his way over to the elevator at the back of the room. He pulled the doors open as he told her, "Theoretically, this Institute can house up to two hundred Shadowhunters."

 _Two hundred._ How many of these people _were_ there?

"And right now?" Yu asked.

"Four. Five, if we count you."

She pouted at him. Was it really necessary to scare her like that with the big number he pulled out of his behind? He couldn't just say four in the first place? She hoped whoever lived here were a little more straightforward than Jace was, that was for certain.

"After you," Jace said sweetly. He gestured to the elevator with an exaggerated flourish. He damn well knew he'd given her a slight scare with the answer he'd given her. Yu scrunched up her nose as she stomped past him, paying attention only to Elmo as the dog jumped at the walls of the elevator. Jace followed at her heels, sliding the grated door shut and pressing the _up_ button on the wall. The whirring and groaning of the elevator filled the silence between them and made the trip feel all the more eternal to the teens.

When the elevator finally came to a halt, Jace opened the door again and mimicked his earlier flourish. He was much, much too excited about all this, Yu thought. She let Elmo's leash go a little slack, giving the dog more room to move around. Elmo wasted no time dragging her after him, nose glued to the floor like he was on a mission.

The empty corridor and countless doors that greeted her left a sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. For a big building that could house a couple hundred people at a time, it was very empty. Yu knew there weren't many people there at the moment—but it was the way the walls spoke nothing but the colour they were painted, the way that not even the interior gave away some kind of personality like the exterior did.

Empty, she repeated to herself glumly.

Jace soon overtook her and Elmo's slow pace. He adjusted one of her bags she'd packed over his shoulder, barely pausing to look back and give her one of his signature grins. "If we're careful…" he muttered, mostly to himself.

Yu watched him with furrowed brows as he peeked into each room they passed. Like he was expecting something to jump out and attack them, or that he'd be proven wrong unexpectedly by a fifth—sixth?—person in the Institute.

After ten doors of silence and Elmo tugging more and more at his leash, Yu groaned, "What are you doing?"

Jace shushed her. Yu's neck shrank into her shoulders, her eyes going wide as he let out an indignant scoff.

Eleven doors successfully checked, and then Jace turned back to her with a matter-of-fact expression. "Is it so wrong that I want to avoid Isabelle and Alec seeing you before Hodge does?"

She looked him up and down. No matter who they ran into, she was certain the goo he was still covered in from _Casa de Fray_ would raise questions. It was amazing how little he stank, actually. Even Elmo wasn't bothered by it—not that it stopped her from making sure the border collie kept his tongue behind his teeth while the teen was drenched in the stuff. If it came from a demon, who knew what it'd do to her precious dog?

Yu settled for rolling her eyes in response. Jace took it as nothing more than exhaustion at his eccentricities, no doubt, and returned to his meticulous inspections of every room they passed. Not once did the corridor change, even as they passed rooms that were very clearly decorated and had more personality installed into them. She even lingered at what looked to be a sitting room, complete with a small fireplace and a pile of books stacked beside an armchair.

The silence was dragging on just as much as the corridor was. Not even Elmo could stand it after a while, and he whined up at Jace during an inspection of—Yu assumed—was a storage room.

"That's just Church's smell," Jace told the dog idly.

"Church?" Yu asked. Small talk breaking the silence seemed to be what Jace needed to relax, even if it wasn't by much.

He shrugged as he continued to lead her past more rooms. "A very old, very stubborn cat. To anyone who isn't me, that is," he added with a smirk.

Yu let out a sympathetic hum, her attention turning to Elmo. She ignored Jace entirely as she cooed at the dog in baby-talk, "Is okay, Moo. I'll pwotect you fwom the mean kitty."

Jace was staring at her dryly when she finally turned her attention back to him. He made no comment on her speech or even the insinuation that the cat would be a thorn in Elmo's side. Instead, he just scrunched up his face and resumed his walk.

"I think it's safe to say that Isabelle and Alec went out for a spell," he decided. Jace was abandoning his checks of every room they passed, and it definitely eased some of Yu's anxiety. "Hodge'll be good practice for how much hell they give you once you're introduced."

"Lovely," Yu groaned.

"It gets better," Jace quipped. "The whole thing with your friend and the Ravener will bring some… Well, Hodge will definitely react somehow to the news."

"Do you just make it your life mission to stress this guy out?"

Jace scoffed. "There are _others_ I make stressed."

"Oh, no, yes—how could I forget the priceless look on whatshisname's face at Pandemonium?"

"Alec."

She knew what his name was. God forbid she be a little facetious in spite of her situation.

The idle chit chat seemed to at least make the walk go by faster. Yu hadn't even noticed some of the rooms pass them by, and she certainly hadn't seen the ornate double doors Jace stopped at before now. She was so focused on covering her anxiety with sass—well deserved, well earned sass—that for a moment she'd forgotten just where she was. For all of that short conversation, she was just giving some guy she knew a hard time while she walked Elmo.

Jace turned to her and adjusted her bag once more. Yu chewed her lip, her focus stuck on the doors and the possibility of an interrogation on the other side. What did she know about Hodge? He stressed over Jace, he demanded Yu come to the Institute once Jace's knowledge of her came to light, and… That was it. A stressed, by-the-book man, she assumed.

Well, at least she had the stress in common with him.

Jace was almost waiting for her to give him permission to knock or something. Yu squeezed her eyes shut, tightened her grip on Elmo's leash, and let out a long-winded groan.

"Do or die," she near-shouted as she slammed a hand on the doorknob and twisted it as far as it would go.

Three pairs of eyes were already watching her when the door swung open. Three rather disapproving eyes, she noted. Whatever first impression she had was ruined prematurely by her shoddy attempt at throwing caution to the wind.

Jace was just as dismayed at the people inside, but more for being proven wrong than for the looks they gave him. Isabelle and Alec were very much in the Institute, and they were very much sneering at Yu while simultaneously glaring at Jace.

"Lovely," Jace mimicked her earlier remark. He reached over, offering to take Elmo's leash, and Yu handed it to him without so much as looking his way.

The room everyone was gathered in was unmistakably the library of the Institute. The walls were practically bookshelves, and beyond the window and desk that Alec, Isabelle, and Hodge were settled near were rows more waiting for keen eyes to read their titles. Even the sight of a ladder leaning on one wall of books was enough to lift her spirits a little, but that feeling would soon vanish without a trace once she looked back over at the desk.

She made direct eye contact with Hodge, and grey eyes wasted no time halting her on the spot. Jace took a few more steps ahead of her, but stopped once he noticed her hesitance. Yu's gaze went beyond Hodge, to the chair he sat in—and on its back, nestled comfortably like the ruler of the roost, was a single raven.

Yu took in a shuddering breath and whispered to Jace, "Here's fine."

The disapproving looks turned into puzzlement, and soon everyone was looking back at Hodge—and then at the raven behind him.

Jace was the first to comment on it. "A raven is where you draw the line?"

"I've drawn _many_ lines," Yu scoffed. "This is just the non-negotiable one that I don't have to point something sharp at yet."

"After _everything_ —"

Hodge cleared his throat. Jace froze up, an expression Yu never thought she'd see on his face slowly making an appearance. It was the kind of expression a kid would make when they said the wrong thing in front of their parents, caught out in their scheme and unable to lie their way out of it. Or, in Jace's case, play dumb until they gave up.

He turned to look at Hodge again, forcing a neutral expression as Hodge leaned forward in his chair.

"What on earth happened to you while you were out?" Hodge's voice was stern, but it sounded much younger than his greying hairs and worry lines suggested. Jace _really_ must've put this man through the ringer as a kid.

Jace cleared his throat and pulled Elmo closer to him. The border collie sat down obediently, and he licked his lips once he noticed the not-quite-dry goo on Jace's person. Yu watched the dog in alarm as Jace began his explanation.

It was a very abridged version of the events of the day, that was for sure. He mentioned the initial plan to just let Yu leave with the friend, then the demon attack at said friend's house. He reached for his jacket's inner pocket and pulled out the two seraph blades, handing one to Yu, and went on to talk about the Ravener. Yu interrupted him once to add, "That's why he's all gross."

"Yes," Jace groaned. "Thank you."

While they were practically at the end of the story, Isabelle still took the time to cut in and make her own accusation—one that Jace was just about to mention, no less.

"Is that a Mark on her neck?"

Alec and Hodge jumped to attention, and the raven cawed in alarm. Yu stumbled backwards, hiding behind Jace almost instinctively. Hodge was no longer as calm as before, in full panic mode as he gave Yu a once-over and ran a hand through his hair.

"Before I get the lecture of a lifetime," Jace said, hands raised placatingly. He looked over his shoulder at Yu, stepped aside so she was in full view, and asked her, "What was the name of the seraph blade again?"

And like a fool, Yu said, "Ridwan?"

The seraph blade in her hand sprang to life, a glow cast against her skin that pushed an alarmed squeak from her throat. She dropped the blade and held a hand to her chest. Hodge hadn't even said anything to her directly yet and she was already having a heart attack. Her do or die mentality was backfiring—she was far from doing and close to dying.

No one was saying anything. When Yu looked back at everyone, they were bug-eyed and watching the seraph blade like it was some kind of anomaly. As far as she knew, she was the only one allowed to have that response—these people fought with them, didn't they? Why were they shocked?

During this silence Jace took the reins again, delving deeper into his explanation. He mentioned his attempt at looking into Yu's family history, at how little he found in the way of the Shadow World. With great reluctance, he even said, "I think that Yu Ascended somehow."

Hodge gathered his bearings enough to blurt out, "The Cup—"

" _Without_ the Cup," Jace added.

The weathered man sank back down into his seat. A dark expression clouded his face, mixing in with his exhaustion and shock. Alec glanced at him nervously, while Isabelle kept her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide on Yu.

Finally, Hodge said, "Go clean yourself up and put, ah…"

Yu looked at the floor, nervous. "Ayumu," Jace said for her.

"Put Ayumu's things and her pet in one of the rooms." He waved a hand at Alec and Isabelle, signalling for them to leave as well. "I would like to have a word with Ayumu in private."

The teens filed out one by one. Yu's heart sank as the amount of people between her and Hodge decreased, and her desire to run only intensified when Elmo—ever the loyal pup—whined and howled as Jace closed the door behind him.

Hodge was silent for the first few seconds. He didn't even look at her. He just crossed his hands under his nose and let out a long, heavy sigh at his desk. Was there anything Yu could say about the situation to make things better? To climb out of the hole that her whole week had dug for her? While she waited for Hodge to speak she reached down for the seraph blade. It was already sheathed, back to being just the small tube she'd found it as in the brownstone.

She moved to set it down on a nearby chair, but Hodge stopped her and said, "You may as well hold on to it."

She looked at him, and the clouded expression was gone. Hodge regarded her with an almost warm smile, strained but welcoming nonetheless.

"I apologise for all of this," Hodge said. Yu slowly sank into the chair she'd planned to put the seraph blade on. "Jace can be…"

She grimaced. "Yeah. He sure can," she agreed.

"How long have you been aware of the Shadow World, Ayumu?"

Yu crossed her hands over her knees. Then she uncrossed them. She wasn't sure just what she should be doing with her hands right now. "Couple weeks? Maybe?"

"And you've known Jace for…?"

"A—Around the same time. I saw him at a crossing and said I liked his tattoos, and when he followed me after he kinda stopped me from being hellhound food."

Hodge nodded, but didn't say anything. Yu panicked a little.

"I begged him not to say anything to anyone," she insisted. Hodge didn't stop nodding. "At first we were just brainstorming over some stuff, but then I got worried and just didn't want anyone to find out. And Jace didn't have to, but he did! So please don't be mad at him for not saying anything sooner."

He blinked at her. His voice was soft, diplomatic, as he said, "I understand."

More contemplative silence, and then Hodge asked her, "Do you know why you may have encountered a Ravener in your friend's home?"

Yu opened her mouth, only to close it again. That was something she didn't want to consider until now. From what she knew most demon attacks were random, but Raveners weren't random—at least according to Jace. If someone had sent a Ravener, then didn't that mean that Clary or Jocelyn had been targeted? But why, if that was the case? They were regular people, as far as she knew.

She looked down at Ridwan, remembering the blade Jace had found in the back of Jocelyn's closet. Were they as regular as she thought, though? Normal people didn't just have these in their houses. Hell, Jace made it pretty clear they were Shadowhunter-exclusive. And Jocelyn wasn't one to just pick up old items or shiny things to keep for herself. That was more Luke's thing, if only because his hobby happened to be his work.

Her shoulders sagged. Her grip on Ridwan went so slack that it almost slipped out from her fingers.

"I don't know," she said, voice quiet. She didn't want to say it as loud as one would when talking about their day or a homework assignment. It felt too intense, too conspiratory. "My friend, she's just a fifteen-year-old who loves art. She stayed away from bad crowds and the worst people she knew were some teenage boys who couldn't land a date in their lives and formed a band that had the worst names in the world. But…"

Yu lifted the hand with Ridwan, drawing Hodge's attention back to it again. "But this was in her mom's room. There was another one hidden in the closet. A—And it was _her_ room that the demon came out of—the first one, before we went in. I can't make an assumption," she decided, "but all I know is that my friend's mother had Shadowhunter stuff in her closet and that demons attacked them specifically while I was out."

Hodge leaned back into his chair. His gaze rested on the blade before Yu lowered it again, and then he was watching her with an almost careful expression. He was gauging his response.

"There is a chance that your friend and her mother may be Shadowhunters who have evaded the Clave," he said slowly. "If this is the case, then it may help to look for them in our records. Do you know their full names? Could you write them down alongside your own?"

"My own?"

"Jace's claim was very…" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's an unheard of, practically impossible event. The likelihood of you being unaware of your heritage is greater."

It was the likelihood that she hoped for, but… Yu chewed her lip, teeth digging in deep as she considered the day so far. If she was from a Shadowhunter family or something, wouldn't there be something like Ridwan hiding away in her house? She was more familiar with the house than even her parents were—Yu was the one who patrolled daily the first time she'd been home alone, certain to lock every window and door and block every crevice something could sneak through. She'd hunted down Elmo trying to avoid a bath. She'd desperately looked for places to store her things when she ran out of room. She would've found something, right?

Instead of arguing this, though, Yu felt resignation wash over her. Maybe getting the records checked would help her case. Help Clary be found. If Shadowhunters could fight demons and keep an eye on the supernatural, then they'd surely be able to track down three people Yu had seen just an hour ago?

"Okay." She watched Hodge rise from his chair and fetch a pen and paper from his desk. Yu didn't waste any time writing down the names for the records: _Clary Fray, Jocelyn Fray, Luke Garroway, Ayumu Burakgazi_. "What happens if they aren't in the records?"

Hodge hesitated. "Then we look into other options of finding them. If demons were in their home, there's no doubt that we need to intervene," he finally said.

She was dismissed shortly after. Yu closed the door behind her, Ridwan heavy in her hand. Her chest ached. Her arms were lead. This wasn't how she imagined coming to the Institute to be—to be so draining and to leave her exhausted. Almost an hour ago she was ready to take on the world and find Clary no matter what. But now? Now it was like all that determination had been sucked from her until she was just tired, ready to collapse and hide away from the world.

As she walked back the way she'd come with Jace, following the straight corridor, she realised she hadn't even been told where her room would be. This day was just going to get better and better.


End file.
